


Vogons and Vegetarians

by Thistlepaw



Category: South Park
Genre: Buddhism, Bullying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nerdiness, Past Child Abuse, Romance, Sexual Harassment, Vegetarians & Vegans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-06-29 01:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19819894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlepaw/pseuds/Thistlepaw
Summary: It's the 90's, it's the start of a new school year. It's Walkmans and tie-dyed T-shirts and romcoms on TV. There's a girl in desperate need of rescuing, and a boy who's too stupid to be anything but a hero. Oh, and there's coffee.





	1. August: I’m nothing but trouble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonofthanatos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonofthanatos/gifts).



> \- Because one good deed deserves another! 
> 
> NB: Click here for some gorgeous fan art from this very story: https://www.instagram.com/p/B2xltkqFwhc/?hl=en
> 
> As I'm plotting out the final story-arc of my "main" fic, Ghosting for Beginners, I offer you this little morsel to chew on while you wait for the next update.
> 
> EDIT: And in case you're wondering about that song Richard plays at his club meeting, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyqDvojqxc8
> 
> EXTRA EDIT: Ace Ventura was a pet detective (I think?) played by Jim Carey, who as far as I can tell went around rescuing animals. When I came across a reference to him _after_ I'd posted this chapter, I realized there was no way I - or rather, Richard's classmates - could pass up on such a perfectly accurate cruel nickname.

“I _bet_ she cut that herself,” Betty Thompson whispers to Judy Meyers, and while Richard’s always thought of her as one of the _nice_ girls, there’s something about her tone now that makes him look up from the poster he’s been working on. And he instantly knows who Betty’s talking about – the much-rumoured new girl, the only girl in this classroom he’s never seen before. Slim and sort of willowy, with bobbed brown hair and a long-sleeved, mint-green T-shirt tucked under the straps of her navy blue summer dress. From where he’s sitting, Richard can only see her from behind, as she walks up to their homeroom teacher’s desk, hips swaying, with an armful of papers. There’s a purple tie-dye satchel slung over one of her shoulders with _something_ embroidered on the front in gold thread; Richard can’t quite make out what.  
Something Mr Anderson’s just said makes her laugh, a pure, tinkling laughter that makes her short hair bounce around. “Oh, I’m nothing but trouble,” she says, obviously in response to whatever their teacher said to her, and now that she’s standing at an angle, Richard can see her face. Well. Betty’s obviously just jealous, he decides, because damn. This new girl is pretty – prettier than _all_ the girls in class put together.  
By the time their first lesson starts, all the jocks have already taken turns circling the new girl’s desk. She smiles and chats to them, but Richard can’t help but notice – not that he’s staring! – how she’s got her butt pressed up against the radiator that runs underneath the row of windows. How her hands are telling their own story, the way she twists and rubs them. Too uncomfortable to even sit down at her desk.  
“All right, everybody! Settle down!” Mr Anderson’s stood up now, and the jocks have no choice but to slink back to their own seats. Homeroom is in session, for the very first time in senior year. Richard is suddenly reminded of his poster – will he have time to colour in all those letters, or should he just not bring it with him, when he does his announcement? He might as well try, he decides, and picks up the green highlighter again. Richard needs to colour the word “VEGETARIAN” green, and so far, all he’s done is “VEGET”. He’s got a whole pile of these things photocopied, and Mrs Kowalski who works in the office even let him do it for free, because she felt so bad for him.  
“You _may_ have noticed we have a new student this year,” their teacher goes on, prompting a cascade of laughter through the room. That’s been pretty much everyone’s main topic for the whole last _week_ of summer holidays; rumours of the mysterious new girl have spread like wildfire before the term’s even had a chance to start. How she doesn’t even have a _real_ family, but is staying in a foster home – the last, apparently, in a long line of foster homes. “Helen, why don’t you come up and introduce yourself?”  
She’s already on the front row by the window, so she swishes up there in just a couple of steps. And now that he can see her head-on, a small part of Richard’s mind is telling him that Betty was probably right – her hair _does_ look longer on one side than on the other. Still, that could be some kind of… style thing. It’s not like the latest fashions travel _fast_ to their po-dunk little town. The rest of his mind is busy thinking _Helen, Helen of Troy._ Because she’s so pretty, of course. Maybe sinking a thousand ships isn’t exactly _doable_ in Colorado, but he bets this Helen could at least cause a car-crash or two.  
“Uh, hi,” she says, with a shy little smile and a wave of her hand. “My name’s Helen Finch, I live with the Robinson family? And, ah, I like long walks on the beach, and kicking dogs.”  
A loud snort has exploded out of Richard’s mouth before he even has time to realize that sound is coming from _him._ He’s doubled over at his desk, laughing until tears roll down his cheeks, because the new girl is so _obviously_ kidding… and then, he realizes he’s the only one laughing. Everybody else, even Mr Anderson, is just staring at her with their mouth hanging open.  
“Um, yeah,” Helen says, “That was a joke.” She’s looking right at him now, but Richard’s too busy covering his mouth and holding his dorky laugh in to return her cautious smile. “I’ll just… go sit down now.”  
“Oh- _kay,_ ” Mr Anderson says, like he’s not prepared to deal with Helen _or_ her odd sense of humour this early in the day. “Richard, you’re up,” he adds, with a little wave of his hand.  
Aw crap, the poster! Richard’s forgotten all about colouring in the “A”, or anything past that. Should he bring it, anyway? He awkwardly pulls himself to his feet, making sure to keep his weight on his good leg, before he stoops to pick his crutches up off the floor. At the last second, he snatches his half-finished poster off the desk anyway, clutching it between two fingers as he hobbles up to the teacher’s desk. Just getting to the front of the classroom takes a hundred years.  
“Hey Ace Ventura,” someone yells, just before he can start the laborious process of turning himself around to face the class. “How’s the duck?”  
Ugh, the duck. If he had a dollar for every time someone asked him that, Richard would have… somewhere between forty and fifty dollars, approximately. Still, he manages to stretch a bright grin across his face _somehow._ “The duck’s doing _great,_ ” he beams, when he’s finally facing the class. “But anyway, I wanted to tell you guys about this,” Richard stacks his right-hand crutch against the teacher’s desk – every little movement needs to be planned out now! – so he can balance on his left foot again, and keep the weight off his broken ankle. Now that he’s finally freed his right hand up, he holds his half-finished poster above his head. “I’ve got the music room booked from three-thirty to four-thirty, for the first meeting of the Vegetarian Club! So if you’re looking to trade recipes, or you’re just curious about vegetarianism in general, well, it’s open to everybody!”  
This cheerful announcement is met with deafening silence. It goes on for so long that eventually, Richard’s resolve falters. He crumples the poster against the handle of one crutch as he slowly hobbles back to his seat. Nobody here understands, and maybe they never will, but that doesn’t mean he’s giving up! 

“Does it hurt?” Those words pop out of her mouth before Helen has a chance to stop them. She’s standing in the open door of the music room, her satchel digging into her left shoulder, her most precious book hidden underneath the textbooks. She never leaves home without it, in case it gets found.  
“Uh?” Richard looks up from his cookbook at her, utterly confused for a second, before a huge, surprised grin lights his face up. He’s got his broken ankle propped up across one of the empty chairs, which he’s pulled out in front of him. There are a _lot_ of empty chairs, left out in a circle, probably after the last lesson of the day. Either that, or Richard Tweak is the world’s _biggest_ optimist. There’s a CD-player sitting on the chair to his left, the cord trailing like a long, black tail across the floor before it finds a plug socket. A CD with a cover Helen can’t quite make out lies next to it, tugging at her curiosity. “Wow,” he starts to laugh, and it just lights his whole face up, “I can’t believe you came!”  
“Well, I…” Helen stops to chew her bottom lip for a second; before she draws a breath and walks all the way into the room, her dirty old Converse squeaking on the linoleum. Once upon a time, they used to be white – but that was before Helen discovered Dylon. Now they are mint green; her favourite colour. “I’ve been wanting to go vegetarian for a while now,” she says cautiously. Then she clamps her teeth firmly shut, before she can say too much. Besides, a guy like Richard is bound to have a girlfriend somewhere – he’s not exactly ugly, is he, with his auburn curls and sky-blue eyes. So getting too involved would just be stupid.  
“Really?” The way Richard smiles, like Helen’s just given him the best present in the world, is almost too much for her. After a whole day of feeling like a rabbit cornered by foxes, the last thing Helen needs is for someone to be so _nice_. Not if she wants to get through her first day of school without doing something _really_ stupid, like bursting into tears. “Oh, and it, it does hurt,” he adds, with a little laugh, like he’s just remembered her question. “Nobody’s even asked me about that; they’re all too busy asking about the duck.”  
“The duck?” If there are rumours floating around about _him_ , Helen has yet to hear them. There are probably a few being spread about _her_ by now, but she’s taught herself not to care about stuff like that. Those kinds of rumours are as inevitable as thunderstorms and snow.  
Richard sighs up at the ceiling. “Okay, so… there’s this park in the centre of town, with lots of little streams and bridges, and lots of ducks that people feed. But there’s _also_ lots of little spots where people can hide to drink. And, you know, _smoke out._ ” This is followed by an eye-roll that clearly tells Helen people who smoke weed are not worth Richard Tweak’s time. “And that’s probably how one of those plastic six-pack holders wound up in the pond. One of the mallards there got his neck caught in that thing, and…” he shrugs. “My brothers and I spotted him struggling to eat. Because the plastic was sort of…” Richard puts his hand under his chin, like he’s choking himself; and Helen quickly has to look away.  
“That’s awful,” she mutters, remembering the feeling of hands around her own neck, of icy water filling her nostrils and mouth. “Poor little thing.”  
“I know, right?” Richard’s getting into his story now, sitting up straighter; waving his hands around. “We’d keep coming back, when we didn’t have to work at the shop or anything, and try to catch him so we could get the plastic off. But he got so scared, it was almost impossible to sneak up on him. Then one morning, we went down there, and just as we were walking across one of the bridges, he swam out – like, right in front of me, you know? And I was just so, so _sick_ of the whole thing, and he was _right_ there, and I _knew_ I could get him…”  
“So you jumped?” Helen cautiously sits down on the chair to his right – there’s an empty gap between them, anyway, from where he took that chair to rest his leg on. If anybody walks in, it’s not going to _look_ like anything. Probably.  
“Yup. Water’s really shallow and I landed badly, so my ankle snapped like a twig. _But_ I caught the duck,” Richard adds, and he really has the warmest smile. “The vet treated him for free, and even tagged him for us, with those metal rings they use to track birds? My little brother’s been going back there with the binoculars, just to check up on him, and the duck’s basically back to normal now, so….” Richard shrugs. “Everybody thinks I’m an idiot, though. Especially my dad,” he adds, under his breath.  
“Wow.” Helen can feel her cheeks heating up, but she’s just got to say it, “I’m glad there’s _one_ good person in this town!”  
Richard opens his mouth, then closes it. The tips of his ears turn red first, before the blush spreads down to his cheeks. “Ah,” he says, “Um.”  
“Hi,” a piping, unbroken child’s voice suddenly calls out, “Is this the vegetarian club?”  
Helen turns around, to find a little boy with red hair and freckles standing in the open door. He’s got that almost translucently pale skin some red-haired people have; he’s clutching one of Richard’s homemade posters like it’s a lifeline, and he’s just about the cutest thing Helen has seen in her life.  
“It is,” she tells him, jumping to her feet and leaving her bag by her seat. Richard does _not_ strike her as the type who’ll go through other peoples’ stuff. She hurries over with her hand held out, and the boy only hesitates a second before his sticky little hand closes around her fingers. “Come in, we were just about to start – right?”  
“Right! Right,” Richard jolts into action, flicking the CD-player on. “Helen, can you close the door? I don’t think anybody else is gonna show, and we don’t want to get noise complaints.”  
“Sure.” Only now does Helen notice that he’s even taped a poster to the door, and that this one’s had all the bubble-letters that form the word “VEGETARIAN” coloured in with green highlighter. The little boy is still holding on to her right hand, but he’s being very quiet. “What’s your name,” she asks, smiling down at him and wondering how old he might be – eight, nine? He’s wearing a faded, too-big T-shirt with the Mighty Ducks logo on it, and up this close, Helen can see how the brown stain on his collar matches the crusted blood underneath one of his nostrils.  
“I’m Orville,” the boy replies, very seriously. “And nobody likes me.”  
“Well, that can’t be true,” Helen says, as she pulls him back towards the circle of chairs. “You haven’t met _everybody_ in the world yet, have you?”  
“That’s stupid,” Orville counters, as he lets go of her hand to hop up on the chair next to hers. “It’s impossible to meet everybody in the _world._ ”  
Helen doesn’t turn her head, but she can totally tell that the snort coming from Richard is a suppressed laugh. “Maybe after today, Helen and I will like you,” he says, very seriously. “So put your best foot forward, Orville!”  
_Don’t fall in love with this guy,_ Helen tells herself sharply, after she bites down on the inside of her cheek so she won't laugh.  
“Okay, so I thought we’d start our meetings with a song,” Richard goes on, while Orville just nods, deadly serious, and a slow guitar beat starts up from the CD player. “Like the Communists do, you know? This one’s called Cows With Guns!”  
Helen squeezes her eyes shut, even as she feels herself start to smile. _Don’t fall in love, don’t fall in love._


	2. September: Volleyball blows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! First off, a big ol' sweaty THANK YOU to all 21 of you who have stopped by to check this fic out! I really appreciate you giving it a chance! 
> 
> Secondly, if you're wondering who or what Launchpad McQuack is, here you go:  
> https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Launchpad_McQuack
> 
> I hope you'll stick with this little story, because there's definitely more to come!

One tiny, _miniscule_ advantage to having a broken ankle; is that it gets him out of gym. Richard Tweak has never exactly been fond of gym. He also gets to choose which half of the gym he sits in – the boys’ half, where they’re playing basketball, or the girls’ half, where the volleyball net is being strung up. If not for Helen, he might’ve just opted to stay on the boys’ side and tried to sneak out the book he’s reading – currently, Dad’s dog-eared old copy of Sirens of Titan. Or he might’ve run the headphone cord from his Walkman up under his sweater, so he could listen to Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, even though he’s heard it all before. But now? Now he’s suddenly very _keen_ to watch.  
It’s only the first week of September, and it’s still pretty warm out, so it’s with mild disappointment that he realizes Helen’s the only girl in their class wearing the sweatshirt from the gym uniform. Maybe she gets cold easily, Richard thinks, as he swings his right leg up to rest on the bench seats. Actually, Helen’s always wearing a long-sleeved _something._ He’ll have to watch the game sitting sideways, but putting his foot up makes the throbbing stop, so that’s a small price to pay.  
Their school’s reasoning for splitting boys and girls up in gym is actually one that Richard can get behind – that boys are rowdier, and the girls could get hurt by accident. So every week, the blue net goes up, and the genders go their separate ways. And, as Mr Connor the gym teacher so poetically puts it, nobody gets punched in the boobs. The only downside, of course, is that he can’t keep an eye on both groups at once…  
Richard watches while the girls pick two captains for their teams. Judy Meyers – should he think of her as his ex now? – gets to lead one of the teams. It’s not like when the boys pick their teams at all, and stoically line up like they’re being assigned to their squads in the army. No, this is different – the girls stay in their friend clusters, hugging each other and playfully begging their two captains not to be split up. Except for Helen, who stands all by herself. Richard’s started to notice how she’ll do that a lot, when there are other girls involved – he just can’t quite work out if she’s choosing to be alone, or if the other girls are closing their ranks against her.  
Suddenly, she turns to look right at him, and raises her hand in a little wave. Richard waves back, of course. He's got a feeling he may just be the only friend Helen’s made here so far. Well, him and Orville, but _he’s_ only in elementary school. So _technically,_ Orville doesn’t count…  
While the girls all hive off into their two teams, and Helen waits, folding her hands behind her neck, Richard wonders if it would be weird to bring her back to the coffee shop. He’s never seen her drink coffee, but he’s known her for less than two full weeks, so maybe she’ll like it… Mom and Martin will be manning the shop then, while Dad’s taking the cash to the bank. Since you can’t very well serve customers on a broken ankle, Richard’s been either absolved or banned from working there – how he feels about it depends on the day. Simon’s back in college now; so that means Richard almost gets more time alone than he knows what to do with. He leans back against the bleachers, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully. What if he sells it to her as a really great place to do your homework? Helen’s mentioned how hard it is to get anything done at home, with her two foster brothers always running around the house, playing and screaming.  
Richard looks up, just in time to see Helen get picked last. She walks over to Susie Schwartz’ team, on the far side of the net – but wait, aren’t the girls an odd number? And didn’t Judy start calling her team first? So in theory, Helen should go to Judy’s team by default. Unless… Nah, Judy wouldn’t be that mean to somebody, Richard tells himself. They dated for over _two months_ last semester, plus for a big chunk of the summer, and Judy never acted mean then.  
The boys are already jumping and bellowing their way through the first part of their game, and Mr Connor comes around the net now, to get the girls’ game started. He seems to find it all a bit boring, though, because he doesn’t stick around for long.  
Meanwhile, the girls are playing, and maybe it’s because they’re not used to being watched that they think they can get away with this? Because Helen’s fast and agile, and still the other girls are taking _pains_ not to pass her the ball. Watching from the bleachers, Richard keeps seeing opportunities for her team to score, opportunities they deliberately seem to pass up. He can feel himself starting to get annoyed now, because they’re treating Helen like she doesn’t even exist!  
He wants to say something, call them up on it. _Make_ them admit that what they’re doing is wrong. Still, after what he did last semester, Richard’s pretty sure that wouldn’t work anyway. People are so good at ignoring things they don’t want to hear – and he hadn’t even been shouting, then. Just calmly explaining the facts, and showing them some slides. But, he sure feels like shouting now…  
A loud crack pulls Richard out of his thoughts, and he sees that Helen’s on the floor, sprawled on her butt; one hand covering her nose. What – did she just take a ball to the _face?!_ She gets up on shaking legs, walks right off the pitch and up the bleachers, taking the steps two at a time. And not _one_ of the other girls lifts a finger to stop her.  
“Volleyball blows,” Helen says, as she sinks down on the bench next to him. There are two steady streams of blood dripping from her nose, and there’s blood on her fingers, too.  
“I hate all sports equally,” Richard replies, before he picks up his backpack and starts looking for that packet of tissues Mom pressed on him at the start of term. It feels weird, acting this normal after what he’s just seen. It feels _wrong._  
“How diplomatic of you. Got any toilet paper in there?”  
“I’ve got _tissues._ ” Richard triumphantly holds the pack of Kleenex up. “I’m not a _barbarian,_ Helen,” he adds, and that stupid joke gets him a lop-sided smile, before she takes the tissues from his hand. He can’t help but notice how her hand is shaking, just a little bit. “They did that on purpose,” he mutters, and he can feel the way his face twists up with anger.  
“Of course they did.” Helen, who’s gently mopping the blood from her nose, makes it sound like this is an everyday occurrence. Like she expects nothing less. She shakes one Kleenex out like a blanket before she carefully rips it in half and starts stuffing the tissue up one nostril. “Other girls don’t like me,” she adds, with a little shrug. “That’s just how it is.”  
Just how it is?! No, don’t… Richard draws a deep, deep breath. Helen is the _last_ person he wants to shout at. “You shouldn’t put up with that crap,” he tells her, keeping his voice as steady as he can. “I’m gonna tell Mr Connor, okay?”  
“Are you crazy?” Helen’s eyes, which are a pale brown shade that’s always made Richard think of milk chocolate, widen with alarm. “That’ll just make it worse!”  
Richard opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again. Because what can he say? He knows she’s right.  
“Finch,” Mr Connor suddenly yells from down by the volleyball net, where the game has been called to a halt, “Get back down here!”  
“Oh, it’s okay, Mr Connor,” Helen yells back, waving and smiling, “I’m having menstrual cramps!” It’s the world’s most obvious barefaced lie – it’s so blatant, you might as well just go ahead and call it sarcasm. The girls are tittering, excited by the prospect of Helen getting into trouble now, instead of them. But for some reason, the gym teacher actually seems to be buying it. He grunts something and waves his arm, before he blows his whistle to start the game back up again.  
Ah, to hell with it, Richard thinks. “Uh, Helen? I told you my family owns a coffee shop, right?”  
“Only like, a hundred times.” Her smile is so warm, like she’s happy about the change of subject.  
“Well, do you wanna… go there with me today? For homework? You can really, uh, concentrate there. And I’ll make you a coffee,” he adds, feeling completely disgusted with himself when he realizes that he’s blushing.  
“Okay.” Helen smiles at him, and even with tissues sticking out of her nose, she’s just so pretty. Painfully pretty. “I’d like that.” 

Richard and Helen live in opposite directions, so they’ve never even ridden the school bus together. But now, they first take the school bus, and then switch to the number 10 bus, where Richard sneakily pays for her. Helen is too distracted by her worry that he might tip backwards and crack his head open on the pavement to even realize what Richard is doing, until he hands her a ticket. She offers to pay him back, of course, even though she _knows_ he’ll refuse.  
“I have a price,” he says, once he’s sunk into a bus seat, with a sigh and a wince. “You have to listen to something with me. Trust me,” he adds, as he swings his navy blue backpack into his lap and digs out a Walkman, “It’s amazing.”  
“It” turns out not to be music at all, but the most insane radio show Helen has encountered in her _life_. They listen with one ear-bud each, while Richard keeps an eye on the window so they won’t ride too far. It opens with some English guy called Arthur finding out that his house is about to be demolished – Helen just can’t _help_ but giggle at their cute, high-strung accents. And she laughs like a drain when the evil estate agent asks if he has any idea how much damage the bulldozer would take, if he just ran over poor Arthur with it. (“How much?” “None at all.”) Only then, a friend of his turns up to say that actually, Arthur’s house being demolished isn’t worth worrying about – because the Earth itself is being demolished! What the hell _is_ this stuff?  
“That’s us,” Richard suddenly says, pressing the “Stop” button, jerking Helen out of the story. “I, ah, can always copy the tape for you, if you liked it?” He looks so hopeful that, even if she hadn’t thought it was funny _at all,_ there’s no way for Helen to refuse.  
“Sure,” she says, “I’ll bring you a blank tape tomorrow.”  
“Oh, you don’t have to – ”  
“I _want_ to. There’s a corner store where I’m staying that sells the three-packs. I mean,” Helen can feel herself blushing, as she realizes her slip-up, “Near my house.”  
“Then bring me the whole three-pack,” Richard says, as he uses one crutch to haul himself into a standing position, “And I’ll copy six sides for you! This thing’s pretty long!” Either he didn’t realize what she’s said, or he’s chosen to ignore it. But it doesn’t matter. The main thing, Helen decides, is that she doesn’t need to explain to him how _nowhere_ really feels like home anymore. There’s been too many houses, too many sets of foster parents. Too many things going wrong.  
Watching Richard hop off a bus on his crutches is even more terrifying than watching him get on. But, Helen supposes, he must’ve had that cast on for about a month by now? So he’ll be used to it.  
“Ten out of ten,” he asks, grinning down at her like he can read her mind, while the bus doors close with a swish behind them.  
“ _Nine_ out of ten,” Helen replies, raising an eyebrow. “You only get the full ten if you do a pirouette.”  
That makes Richard laugh, which is nice. Helen _likes_ making him laugh.  
“There’s one thing you should know, though,” Richard says, his voice suddenly going all quiet, as they approach a large-ish one-storey building that’s been painted a bright, fire-engine red. The front’s all glass, and she can see little round tables in there – most of them empty, a few with just one person sitting there, reading a newspaper or a book.  
Richard mutters something.  
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Helen honestly didn’t catch a word of what he’s just said, but she can see how his ears are starting to turn red, and hides a smile behind her hand.  
“My parents are Communists,” Richard says, only marginally louder. “I just… thought you should know.”  
“So that’s why it’s all red,” Helen says, jerking her chin up at the building’s façade. She spots the shop sign then, a round logo with a tipping coffee cup inside, and the words “Tweak Bros” curved around it.  
“Pretty much.” Richard seems to be mortally embarrassed, which only makes it funnier. “Anyway. You mind getting the door?”  
As soon as she steps inside the coffee shop, this feeling of immense peace settles down over Helen. She can’t explain it; all she knows is that this is the first place in this whole damn town where she hasn’t felt instantly nervous. Part of it might be the music, slow jazz playing over the loudspeakers, but really, this coffee shop is just… an oasis of calm.  
A kid in a red apron with that coffee cup logo on the chest comes running out from behind the counter – he looks so much like Richard that there’s no point in even asking if they’re brothers. And a woman with the same shade of auburn hair, which has been pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, looks out from behind the coffee machine.  
“This is Helen,” Richard’s saying, “We’re just gonna do our homework in the back room. That’s okay, right?”  
“Take a window seat instead,” his mother says flatly, as she comes around the counter. “Make it look like this place is actually busy. I’m Rose.” Richard's mother holds her hand out. It’s calloused and scratchy, but very warm. “And where exactly do you think you’re going?”  
Helen jumps and stiffens up, before she realizes that of course Mrs Tweak is only talking to her son. Richard’s gone around her, to try and slide behind the counter without his mother noticing.  
“I just…” he shrugs, and it’s kind of sweet how annoyed he is about getting caught. Just like a little kid. “I promised Helen _I’d_ make her a coffee!”  
For a few seconds, mother and son lock eyes; then Mrs Tweak sighs. “You’ll have to do it without crutches, then. Remember what your father said about food safety.”  
“Sure!” Balanced on just his good leg, Richard props his crutches up against the wall and dumps his backpack on the floor next to them. Then he spreads his arms wide, saying, “And now, for my next trick! I will make you a coffee while hopping on one leg! Uh, so what do you want,” he adds, while Helen’s still giggling like an idiot.  
“Um.” She looks up at the board above their heads, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I’ve never had a cappuccino before?”  
“Sure! One cappuccino; coming right up!”  
“ _After_ you’ve washed your hands,” his mother scolds him, following Richard behind the counter – presumably to grab him by the scruff of the neck, if he _does_ fall.  
“I’m Martin,” the younger boy says, stooping to pick up Richard’s backpack. “And I’m sorry my brother’s such a dork. It’s the dead skin-cells, you know,” he adds, as he leads the way towards a table that’s right by the big front window.  
“Excuse me?” Helen is confused, to put it mildly.  
“We’re always dropping dead skin-cells everywhere,” Martin explains, very seriously, as he puts Richard’s backpack down next to one of the two chairs. “Human beings aren’t exactly sterile, right? So the dead skin-cells from his palms are all over the handles on his crutches, and basically, if he takes ‘em behind the counter and a health-inspector walks in? Then we’re _done_ for.”  
“I see.” Helen decides she might as well sit down on the other chair, and swings her satchel into her lap. How old is this boy, anyway – thirteen, fourteen? “Is there… Can I help with anything?”  
Martin gives her a superfast flicker of a smile. “Nah,” he replies, “It’s always quiet here, this time of day. So…” he looks over his shoulder, like he wants to make sure Richard can’t hear him, “He tell you about old Launchpad, or what?”  
“Launchpad?”  
“Launchpad McQuack,” Martin says, like this is perfectly obvious. “We had to name that duck _something,_ you know?”  
Vague memories of an old Saturday morning cartoon slowly float to the top of Helen’s mind. A big, strangely bulky white duck with a flight cap and goggles, and a long, flapping scarf. Which house was she living at then? There had been a younger girl, and they’d watched it together, snuggled up under an old green blanket. For the life of her, she can’t remember the girl’s name, now. “Oh, right,” Helen says, “Scrooge McDuck’s pilot! He did tell me,” she adds quickly, “But he wasn’t bragging or anything. And, and is the duck still okay?”  
It feels so stilted, all of a sudden, this conversation. What are they going to say about her around the dinner table tonight? Helen can’t help but wonder. Here she is; wearing shortalls and that paisley blouse she thrifted just before she had to move, with rainbow socks sticking out from the tops of her DocMartens. And she’s pretty damn _certain_ her hair is crooked, from the last time she cut it.  
“He’s in better shape than my brother, that’s for sure,” Martin’s saying, with a quick grin that makes him look _exactly_ like Richard. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him, you know? Tracking him by his bird bling. He’s still scared of people, but at least he’s eating normally.”  
Bird bling, Helen thinks. He means those coloured rings the vet put around the duck’s leg, right?  
“Martin,” Mrs Tweak suddenly calls out, “Come get this tray, will you?”  
“Sure thing, Mom!”  
None of the other guests seem to find it unusual, how they’re essentially shouting across the café. Maybe that’s normal here – maybe that’s what a family-owned establishment is _supposed_ to be like?  
“Was he talking shit about me,” Richard asks as he comes over, using one crutch to pull his chair out. Obviously aware that Martin, who’s following right behind him with their drinks, can hear every word.  
“Of course not!” Helen has no idea if this is all part of their everyday sibling banter, or if he’s deadly serious, so she might as well be on the safe side. “He was telling me about Launchpad McQuack!”  
“Here you go.” Martin puts a mug, also red, down on the table in front of her. When Helen looks over the edge of the mug, she realizes Richard’s even drawn a leaf in the foam somehow. It’s beautiful, almost too beautiful to drink.  
“Ugh, I _told_ you,” Richard says, abruptly jerking the mug away, “The leaf is for me; I put three shots in there!”  
“Oh, right,” Martin drawls, “So you only did it to tell the drinks _apart_. Riiight. Sorry, Helen,” he puts down another mug in front of her, “This one’s yours.”  
There’s no leaf on Helen’s drink – there’s a heart instead, surrounded by chocolate sprinkles. Richard must’ve spent so long on this – not only making the heart out of the foam, but making sure none of the chocolate got into the centre of the heart…  
“That’s, ah, the harmless one.” Richard sounds embarrassed. “Since you didn’t sound like you’ve had too much coffee before? So I only put one shot in yours.”  
“It’s so pretty, it almost seems a shame to drink it,” Helen mutters, still staring at that heart. From the corner of her eye, she sees Martin smack Richard playfully in the shoulder before he saunters off, tray tucked under one arm.  
“Pfft,” Richard waves her compliment away, “Latte art’s easy. Ten out of ten?”  
“Ten point five,” Helen replies, before she lifts the mug to her lips.


	3. October: Just like a Disney princess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you are curious about which artist young Orville is trying to emulate, here's an oldie but a goodie:  
> https://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/4/21/2960508/worst-rob-liefeld-drawings  
> Now just try to imagine militant barnyard animals drawn in this style. Just try. I'll wait.

Richard finally gets his cast off two weeks before Homecoming, not that he’s got any plans to go dancing.  
“It still doesn’t quite feel like my own leg anymore,” he tells Orville, while they’re setting up the music room for their club meeting. “I mean,” Richard puts down the chair he’s carrying, and shrugs, “I guess I just got used to not walking on it for so long…”  
“Dancing’s stupid, anyway,” Orville says, as he totters over with the CD player and dumps it on the chair. “So where’s Helen?”  
“She’s picking up her foster brother from across the road,” Richard explains, stepping back to survey the circle of five chairs – one extra for their guest. “You know she’s got two foster brothers, right? And that they both go to your school?”  
“I know,” Orville says, and suddenly he gets all shifty-eyed. Richard would _love_ to hear about what’s going on there. But he’s known the kid long enough to know that if Orville _wants_ to tell you something, he’ll tell you. If he doesn’t, well… It’s pretty much hopeless to ask. Take that very first meeting they had – Orville had mentioned he wanted to be a vegetarian after his class visited a farm last semester. A lot of little kids are probably shocked when they discover that the pre-packaged meat they see and take for granted in the supermarket comes from yellow puffball chickens, bouncy little lambs and calves that run over to lick your hand, just like a dog would. But, when Richard had tried to carefully probe into what had happened during that farm visit, Orville had clammed up tight.  
“The youngest one – Jamie, I think? He fell on the playground today,” Richard explains, crouching by the wall socket to plug the CD-player in, “Their foster mom had to take him to hospital. And they’re still waiting for him to get his arm X-rayed, so that leaves Helen to look after the other one.”  
“What about the dad,” Orville asks, a little sharply, “Why can’t _he_ do it?”  
“Because Gregory’s working late,” Helen says, from over by the door. Richard looks up, and sees her standing there, holding a squirming, angry-looking black boy by the wrist. She’s wearing that shirt again today, the one she wore the first time he took her to Tweak Bros. The grey one with the pattern that looks like bacteria cells. Her black DocMartens – Helen’s shoe of choice, it seems – clomp against the floor, as she drags the lanky kid behind her into the room. Richard realizes that actually, the boy looks like he could be biracial. Half black, half Asian, maybe? Not that he’s about to ask.  
The kid twists out of Helen’s grip and walks up to Richard, tilting his chin up and shoving his thumbs through the straps of his Batman backpack. “I’ve got a knife,” he says tonelessly.  
“Buster,” Helen snaps, exasperated, as she pulls the door shut behind her.  
Richard just looks at him for a couple of seconds. Poor little thing, he thinks. “Okay,” he says out loud, shrugging. “You want to take part in the meeting, Buster, or just sit somewhere else in the room and do your homework? Or you can read, if you like,” he adds, suppressing the urge to try and get _this_ kid to listen to Hitch Hiker’s Guide. The hell if he’s entrusting his Walkman to a knife-wielding ten-year-old. “I’ve got a really good book in my bag.” He’s got The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich in there, as a matter of fact. And Richard will be the first to admit that a novel about space colonists taking drugs and playing with Barbie dolls might be a little _much_ for a boy Buster’s age.  
“Nah,” Buster says, and walks over to the chair on Richard’s left – the one that’s directly opposite Orville’s seat. Is it his imagination, or are those two glaring at each other?  
“We’re in the same class,” Orville says, like he can _sense_ Richard’s unspoken question.  
“What,” Helen sounds shocked, “ _You’re_ ten?”  
“Yeah,” Orville mutters, as he starts to blush. He’s so much smaller, compared to someone like Buster.  
“Well, anyway!” Richard claps his hands together. “Let’s get this meeting started! Buster, feel free to join in on the chorus, it’s easy.” With that, he turns the CD on, Cows With Guns starts to play… and that’s when the unbelievable happens. When that line about the calf packing an Uzi comes up, Buster starts to laugh! Helen’s so startled by this that she literally jumps, while Orville stares at him with blatant suspicion. But, as far as Richard can tell, the kid just genuinely likes the song.  
Once they start working their way through the agenda, though, Buster quickly seems to lose interest. The first item, raised by Helen, is the complete lack of vegetarian options on the school menu. “I was thinking,” she says, absently tucking her hair behind one ear, “What if we could use the kitchen at your parents’ store?” Her neck is so long and pale. Richard’s never really given much thought to that before, but all of a sudden, he can’t _stop_ thinking about it. “Then we could make a whole bunch of stuff at the one time, and just freeze it, and bring our own portions to school every day. You know; pizza, pasta-dishes, risotto…” Helen has this habit of chewing just the right corner of her bottom lip. She does it now, really quickly. “What do you think?”  
I want to kiss you, Richard thinks.  
Wait, what? He clears his throat. “You can’t freeze rice,” he says instead. “It’ll taste gross.”  
“Oh.” Helen drops her gaze. “Sorry, I’m not that great at cooking.”  
“But, but I’m not saying it’s not a good idea,” Richard blurts out, rowing frantically. “I’ll talk to my mom; maybe we can use the freezer at the store, too!”  
“Pizza,” Orville says, like he can suddenly see light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.  
“Yeah, think about it – we could make like, five pizzas at the one time! Or ten! And use whatever toppings we want! Goats cheese, and olives and sweet-corn, and…” Shit, is he getting a little too enthusiastic now? Richard clears his throat. “I mean. If we write out a list of all the stuff we want, I’ll sit down and work out the cost. Is this…” He hesitates, because how can you ask about this sort of thing, “Is this something they’d give either of you money for at home?”  
Orville nods eagerly, but Helen seems unsure. “I can ask,” she says, ducking her head and looking down at her feet while she clicks her boots together. She’s wearing her skull socks today; you can just see the top half of a skull poking out of each boot. Almost like they’re checking to see if it’s safe to come all the way out. “There’s a, a monthly budget? I’ll try, anyway.”  
“As _if_ they’d let you,” Buster suddenly says, his unbroken voice thick with scorn. He leans over to grab his Batman backpack off the floor, and pulls out a knife the length of his own forearm. In a sheath, thank God – a sheath decorated with lots of tiny beads, in shades of pale blue, orange and yellow. He stares up at Richard with desperate insolence. “This is my knife.”  
Richard forces himself to shrug. He says the first thing that pops into his head, which is, “I wouldn’t cut a pizza with _that._ ” When Buster blinks at him, utterly confused, Richard hurriedly flicks to a new page in his notepad. “Let’s do a list of toppings we’d like,” he says, writing _“TOPPINGS WISHLIST”_ along the top of the page. “Buster, if a teacher walks in, they’re gonna confiscate that,” he adds, as casually as humanly possible, while he writes, _corn, black olives, goats’ cheese._ “Helen,” he holds up the pad so she can read, “What about you?”  
“Peppers, I guess,” she says, glancing over at Buster who is – whew! – putting the knife into his backpack again. “Mushrooms. Oh, and aubergines? And would it be weird to put Brie on pizza?”  
Once they’ve filled the whole page up, it’s Orville’s turn to present his drawing for a new flyer. Last week, Orville mentioned how he doesn’t think Richard’s old design is cool enough, and Richard was forced to admit the kid had a point. For one thing, it relied on colouring one word in by hand; even before they’d run out of green highlighters, Helen and Orville had both run out of patience. “I can draw something,” Orville had said, very seriously. “Give me one week.”  
Before Simon left for college in Fort Collins, the three Tweak brothers always used to pool their pocket-money to buy comics. Ever since they’d first learned to read, the three of them used to sit on Simon’s bed and debate which titles to get and which to drop, as seriously as if they were allotting the national budget. They used to fight over _every_ single title. But Orville’s picture reminds Richard of that artist who’s so awful; it made the three of them unanimously agree to stop buying New Mutants before it had even turned into X-Force.  
“You can’t just draw a million pouches on stuff and call it art,” Simon had growled. “You can’t just give a guy four arms and call him _Forearm!_ ”  
“And all their feet look like _flippers,_ ” Martin had muttered, slumping against the wall. “I want my dollar back.”  
“To hell with this crap,” Richard had agreed, before he’d pulled his arm back and pitched New Mutants 87 right into the wastepaper basket, and that had been the end of that.  
But now, here’s Orville, holding up a big sketch-pad with a picture of a sneering black-spotted cow with a machine-gun cradled in its _very_ muscular front legs. It’s wearing a beret at an angle on its big, square head, and for some reason there’s a bandolier slung across its chest, with lots of little ammo pouches drawn on.  
“Wow,” Richard says, because words kind of fail him at this point.  
“That’s perfect,” Helen exclaims, clapping her hands together in delight. “Just like in the song! You’re such a good artist, Orville!”  
While Orville does his best to look like he _isn’t_ preening from all the praise, and Richard quietly accepts that he’ll be passing out flyers with X-Cutioner the Cow on them, he can’t help but notice how Buster’s mouth has slipped open.  
“I bet you can’t draw the Joker,” Buster says, trying and failing to sound like he isn’t impressed at all.  
“Sure I can,” Orville says, casually flipping back a few pages, before he holds up a full-page picture of Batman and the Joker in free-fall. The Joker laughs as he straddles Batman’s chest, punching him with blurred fists, while Batman shoots a wire out of one gauntlet so it looks like it’s about to come right off the page. Orville really is good, in a rough, untrained sort of way. “Do you want it,” he suddenly offers, looking right at Buster as his hand hovers over the perforated edge of the paper.  
Buster’s eyes go very wide. “Are you sure?”  
“I can just draw another one,” Orville shrugs, before he slowly, carefully starts to tear the page out. Like it’s just scrap paper, and not a peace offering at all.  
Helen looks over at Richard then, raising one eyebrow and pretending to scratch her nose to hide her sneaky little grin. Her eyebrows are curved so perfectly. It reminds him of standing on the piers in San Francisco with his family, watching the huge white seagulls fly away over Alcatraz. He wants to kiss her so bad, it’s making his chest hurt. 

There’s nothing outright vegetarian on the school cafeteria’s menu, but Richard found a way around that last semester. Because Richard doesn’t just think _outside_ the box, he takes the whole box apart and builds something else entirely out of it. Helen likes that about him.  
So what they do is; they order two sides – the fried vegetables and the rice, generally. And to make it a little more exciting, Richard keeps a box of brown OXO gravy in his locker that they share, while Helen brings boiled water to school in her thermos. Lorraine and Gregory can’t exactly begrudge her tap-water.  
“I can’t wait until we’ve can bring our own food to school,” Richard says, as he dumps his tray on the very end of one of the long tables, “And won’t have to eat the same stuff every day. Is Mike Sorensen taking you to Homecoming,” he adds, and it takes Helen a second before his question even registers with her.  
“What? No!” She forces a laugh out, because Mike Sorensen is very high on the list of things that make Helen uncomfortable. “I’m not even _going,_ ” she babbles, “It’s not like I can afford a dress, and the whole thing’s too…” she stops to chew her lip, frantically trying to think of the right word – commercial? No, that’s not quite right, “Too _mainstream_ for me. But you’re still going, right?” Helen busies herself digging her thermos out of the fabric grocery bag she’s “borrowed” from Lorraine, because no way is she carrying water in her satchel in case it leaks. She can only hope her smile is convincing. “Or your girlfriend will be disappointed.”  
“Girlfriend,” Richard says, and his voice has suddenly gone all flat, his face impossible to read.  
“Aren’t you dating what’s-her-name,” Helen asks, as casually as she can, thinking, _Judy, Judy Meyers_. Smiling like the thought doesn’t bother her at all. “You know,” she passes her thermos, with its stupid Scottish tartan pattern, across the table to Richard, “The blonde?” The blonde who wouldn’t have me on her team for volley-ball, just so she’d have an _excuse_ to aim the balls at my face.  
“Oh, _Judy,_ ” Richard says, with a smirk and a little eye-roll. “Oh, we just dated for a little while last semester; but when I broke my _foot?_ Judy broke up with _me._ ” He unscrews the yellowing white cup that serves as the lid, and starts spooning some gravy granules into it. One teaspoon, two… “She _said_ it was because we wouldn’t even be able to dance at Homecoming, but…” Richard concentrates on stirring his mixture for a second, frowning and pouring some more granules in when it doesn’t seem to thicken the way he wants it to. “I think she was pretty sick of me by then, and any old reason would’ve worked. So no,” he suddenly looks right at Helen, and his face is still infuriatingly blank, “There’s no girlfriend.”  
“How stupid can you be,” Helen blurts out, a little louder than she’d intended. “I, I mean,” she goes on, back-pedalling like crazy when he just stares at her, in case Richard thinks she’s talking about _him,_ “You saved that poor bird’s _life,_ and that’s the thanks you get? And how could she get sick of _you,_ anyway?”  
Too late, she realizes what she’s gone and said. “I mean, _why did_ she get sick of you,” Helen quickly amends, hoping that Richard won’t notice how her voice has gone all weird now.  
“Same reason everyone else in class did, probably.” Richard shrugs, and offers her the cup of gravy. “Did I ever tell you about the poultry farm?”  
It almost sounds like a change of subject, but Helen has a feeling it’s anything _but._ “No,” she says cautiously, her fingers briefly brushing his as she takes the cup.  
“I used to be on the school paper,” Richard says, with a sour little laugh. “Apparently I have the weird honour of being the first person they’ve ever fired. I had this idea of doing a report on a poultry farm – you know, just being objective and looking at what goes on there, and maybe make like, a handful of people think twice about eating meat? But I’m not sure how to…” He pulls a hand through his tight curls, lets out a deep sigh. “I’m going to sound like a pretentious asshole now, okay? Brace yourself, Helen,” he adds, with the ghost of his usual ready grin.  
“Okay?” It’s impossible not to smile. “Consider me braced,” Helen says, before she helps herself to some rice and vegetables.  
“I wasn’t… I wasn’t the same person afterwards.” Richard looks down at his own food, pushing a piece of squash around with his fork. “I was already vegetarian, and pretty passionate about it, you know? But…” He puts his fork down, starts to move his hands. “It’s like; there was the me that existed _before_ the poultry farm, and the me that I became _after_.” Richard suddenly looks up at her, and those sky-blue eyes are so cloudy now that it takes a real effort _not_ to reach across the table and slip her hand inside his.  
“It was… it was Auschwitz for chickens. You know how the Nazis conducted all those experiments on their prisoners during world war two? It was like that, those poor things didn’t even look like _birds_ anymore; they were all… warped. Enormous. Like, like those steroid-y superhero comics. So big they barely fit inside the cages. And the cages were so tiny, and the smell…” Richard closes his eyes and shudders. “I had to run outside to puke, and the guy who’d been showing us around just laughed. Said it was perfectly normal. That it was the wet feathers that caused the stink, because they’d just hose the chickens down to get rid of all the birdshit.”  
“Poor things,” Helen mutters. Every life is precious, she wants to say. Even the life of an overfed bird on a poultry farm has some meaning, in the big mosaic of life. But faced with this infinite sadness, what _can_ she say? The words just dry up in her mouth.  
“Hey, Helen!” They both jump, jerked out of their thoughts, as another tray clangs down on the metal table and Mike Sorensen slides onto the bench next to her. “Hey, Ace Ventura! Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”  
“Nope,” Richard answers flatly, like he hasn’t had enough time to assemble his usual pleasant persona yet. Helen is so grateful she could cry – she’ll do anything not to be left alone with Mr Quarterback Superstar, which is what she calls Mike Sorensen in the privacy of her own head. He’s bought a burger and fries, and it’s been so long since Helen ate cooked meat now that the smell of it actually makes her feel a bit ill.  
Mike just stares at Richard for a second, like he’s so used to people doing what he wants that this simply does not compute. Then he shrugs those wide shoulders of his, leans his elbow on the table – Helen has to scramble to rescue the cup of gravy before Mike upends it – and turns the full force of his expensive dentistry on her. “Helen,” he says, “A little birdie tells me you don’t have a date for Homecoming yet.”  
Just the thought of it – those big, inescapable strong hands wrapped around her, impossible to shake off when Mike inevitably decides it’s time to cop a feel… Helen can feel her throat start to close up.  
“I didn’t know you could talk to animals, Mike,” Richard drawls, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Just like a Disney princess, huh?”  
“Ace Ventura.” Mike finally turns his attention on Richard, pointing right at him with one thick finger. “You keep out of this.”  
“I’m not going,” Helen says, and her voice is too loud and shrill. “I’m, I’m not allowed to be out that late. And I don’t want to,” she adds, squeezing a little bit of truth in there after her frantic lie. Forcing herself to look into Mike’s astonished face for a full count of three. “Not with you, not with anyone.”  
Mike Sorensen’s mouth slowly slips open. He’s obviously trying to think of a comeback, but Richard beats him to it, saying, “Hey, Mike – maybe try not to push Helen off the bench?”  
It’s impossible not to laugh, because it’s so true – she’s practically got one whole butt-cheek resting on nothing but air! So Helen laughs until she’s practically screaming, slapping the table-top with one hand and clutching at her chest with the other. And Mike Sorensen gets up, all huffy and offended. Sweeping up his tray with his smelly food and stalking off, like nobody’s ever dared to laugh at him before.  
“Want to make pizzas on Saturday, then,” Richard asks, when Helen’s finally calmed down, and is dabbing at her eyes with the edge of one sleeve. “Since neither of us is going? My mom already said we can use the kitchen at Tweak Bros.”  
“That’s perfect,” Helen rasps; her voice all husky and sore from laughing. What she doesn’t say is; _you’re perfect._ Because Richard’s obviously not interested, or he’d have made a move _ages_ ago. He’s been single since the start of term, after all. Besides, Helen knows she’s not supposed to get involved with people. What’s the point, when the great, creaking machine that is the Colorado State Foster System might whisk her off to another town, another family, at any time? Just being friends is good enough, _more_ than enough. But still, Helen can’t help but wonder. How could _any_ girl be stupid enough to dump this boy?


	4. November: When I make love to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be the first person to admit that I'm no expert on the American foster care system - but, there does seem to be a tendency not to look into cases where kids may have been placed with parents who didn't have their best interest at heart. If you're interested and think you can stomach it, there's the Broken Harts podcast:
> 
> https://www.glamour.com/story/broken-harts-episode-1-fear
> 
> Anyway, this chapter comes with a WARNING for mentions of groping and abuse.

For once, Helen doesn’t even say hi. She _always_ stops by Richard’s locker for a chat before first bell. But this morning, she just runs right past him, her legs a mint-green blur in the tights she’s been wearing since the weather turned last week. He doesn’t even have time to say hello, let alone ask if something’s wrong.  
Helen spends the first fifteen minutes or so of first period chewing the ends of her hair, staring out the window. Way too far away for Richard to pass, or even _throw_ her a note asking what’s happened. He’s not the only one who’s picked up on it – from his seat at the back, he can see the girls nudging each other and leaning across the space between their desks, whispering. She hasn’t even taken her books out! And Mr Fields, who normally doesn’t mind talking the whole class through a maths problem they could easily have solved last semester, just for Helen’s sake, is starting to get annoyed.  
“Helen,” the maths teacher says; all stern. “Can _you_ tell us what the X is?”  
She turns to look at him. Everyone in class is suddenly holding their breath. Then Helen’s chair scrapes back, and she stands up, stooping to pick up her satchel off the floor. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice strangely clear and steady, “But I can’t deal with this right now.” And then she walks right past Mr Fields’ desk and out the door, which snaps shut behind her. In the dead silence that follows, Richard can hear her Doc Martens thumping against the floor outside; Helen must be running as fast as she can.  
Richard suddenly realizes that he’s stood up, too. “Something’s wrong,” he says, as if that wasn’t painfully obvious. “Sorry, sir, I’d better…” He runs down the length of the classroom and out the door, leaving all his stuff behind, not giving himself a chance to second-guess his own decision.  
“You _go,_ Ace Ventura,” somebody shouts after him, but that’s irrelevant. Anything _but_ catching up to Helen is irrelevant right now. Richard gets out just in time to see her round a corner, and takes off after her. His legs are longer, his ankle’s all healed up; he can _do_ this. As he pelts down the corridor, Richard can’t help but think how science fiction-y her outfit looks today, since Helen’s wearing that mint-green T-shirt with the long sleeves _and_ mint-green tights under her shortalls. It’s like her spaceship – or maybe it was a time machine? – crashed and she’s still wearing her flight suit. But she’s also picked up some random denim garment to wear on top, to disguise herself as a contemporary human.  
When he finally catches up with her, Helen’s crammed herself under the bottom rungs at the back of the staircase, squished right up into one corner. You wouldn’t even _see_ her there unless you were actively looking for her, or happened to be standing at a certain angle. She’s got her arms wrapped around her legs, and her face pressed against her knees; the way she’s sitting reminds him a little of an Incan mummy. Muttering something, over and over, and it’s only when Richard’s crawled under the staircase too that he can hear what it is: “Nami amida butsu, nami amida butsu, nami amida butsu…”  
“Hey.” Ducking his head, Richard sits up as high as he dares, squatting on his haunches – and leaving plenty of space between the two of them. “Can you tell me what happened?”  
Helen looks up then, her face streaked with makeup and tears. “Don’t,” she chokes, “Don’t be so nice to me.”  
Richard swallows nervously. “What,” he says, “You’d prefer it if I was mean instead? And spat in your coffee?”  
A laugh is too much to hope for, but that joke _does_ get him a quick flicker of a smile. “He,” Helen draws a deep, shuddering breath, “He put his hand between my legs.”  
“WHAT?!” Dropping to his hands and knees so he won’t knock his head on the steps, Richard quickly shuffles towards her. He can’t help but notice how she flinches at his tone, so he forces himself to talk more quietly. “ _Who_ did that?”  
“Gregory,” she mutters, dropping her gaze.  
“Gregory,” Richard says, and he can feel the rage starting to boil inside of him, “Gregory, as in _your foster dad?_ ”  
Helen nods, biting her lip. “And he said this thing, he’s said it before, that _when_ we make love, not _if, when_ we make love, he’s going to…” But she’s crying too much now, to finish that sentence, and Richard isn’t sure he wants to hear it anyway. Hearing that might just tip him over the edge.  
He shuffles closer, hesitates a second, before he puts a cautious hand against the side of her face. “I won’t let him get away with that.”  
Helen looks up at him then, those light brown of hers eyes red-rimmed and wide. They just look at each other for a second or two, Richard willing her to read his mind and see that he’s serious, that he wants to _fix_ this. Then, Helen’s suddenly thrown her arms around him, sobbing like a little kid.  
“Shh,” Richard whispers into her bobbed hair, rocking her from side to side. “It’s gonna be okay.” Of course, he has no powers to guarantee that. Just willpower. But, he’s got _plenty_ of willpower. 

Thunk! The heavy file lands on the desk, a big brown Manila thing; filled to bursting with documents. A photo slides out, shaken loose, and Helen recognizes it. She was eight, then, and her hair was still long, pulled back in a pony-tail. Scrawny and scowling, her younger self is staring straight at the camera, one hand tugging at the long sleeves of her gingham dress. Always long sleeves. Helen reaches out, and flips the photo face-down.  
Standing above them, Mrs Novotny the councillor is saying all the usual crap. Helen’s long since learned to tune it out, but now that Richard’s sitting in the chair next to hers and very firmly holding her hand, she can’t help but wonder what he’ll think. Who he’ll believe.  
“Helen has a history of lying for attention,” Mrs Novotny is telling him, as though Helen herself isn’t actually there at all. Like she’s his _dog_ or something, and he’s taking her to the vet for a check-up. “Obviously, this is brought on by her poor self-image, something that’s surprisingly common among foster children.”  
“Yeah,” Richard says, and Helen almost faints from relief when she hears that he’s still angry, which means he still believes her, “I can imagine how constantly being called a liar would do that to someone. I can’t _believe,_ ” his hand tightens around Helen’s fingers, “That you’re not on the phone with the police right now.”  
Mrs Novotny sighs as she sits back down. “The fact of the matter is, Richard; that _if_ we get the police involved, these things still take time. And Mr Robinson still has the right to make his statement, and if you then look at the statement from Mr Geller – Helen’s _previous_ foster-father,” she adds, when Richard starts to look confused, “Whom she accused of, let me see…” Mrs Novotny slaps the folder open against her desk, quickly thumbing through all the pages, “Ah, there we are. Helen accused _him_ of fondling her breasts, as well as “inappropriate kissing”, only to drop those accusations two days later…”  
“Because he punched a hole in the wall,” Helen chokes out, “Right next to my head! That doesn’t mean it never happened!”  
But the way Mrs Novotny looks at her… There’s no point in getting worked up. This woman, with her blonde beehive hairdo and her perfect nails, she will do exactly nothing. “If you really do feel unsafe at home,” she says, after waiting just long enough to make Helen start to squirm over her own outburst, “We _may_ be able to find you a place in a so-called halfway-house while we start the process of looking for a new placement for you, but then we’d have to relocate – ”  
“No,” Helen says, standing up without letting go of Richard’s hand. “That won’t be necessary.” Her voice is trembling something awful, but she’s not about to move again, not now. “Sorry for wasting your time.” She looks down at Richard, who still hasn’t moved, willing him to understand. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t believe it,” Richard is saying, fuming, as he pulls Helen along behind him down the corridor. “How can she just sit there, when you’re in _danger_ from this bastard, and call you a liar to your face?”  
“It’s just easier, for people like her,” Helen mutters. Her cheeks are burning with shame, but Richard has yet to let go of her hand. At least he doesn’t think she’s lying. A shudder runs through her as a memory bobs to the surface, of that long, bony hand sliding down her front. The faint smell of tobacco on Gregory’s breath, the way it had tickled the side of her neck. _When I make love to you, Helen, I’ll leave you begging me for more._ She shakes her head, willing his voice to go away.  
“Richie! Richie Tweak, I’m talking to you!”  
Richard abruptly stops walking, because there’s a beautiful blonde girl blocking his path, so Helen inadvertently barrels right into him. The temptation to just flat-out hide behind him is immense, because there’s Judy Meyers, with her heart-shaped face, her sleek ponytail and her perfectly applied makeup. And here’s Helen Finch, with her makeup all over her face. Helen has been doing her best to practice detachment and let go of harmful emotions, but it’s hard not to hate Judy Meyers. The girl who threw Richard away, like he’d never meant a thing to her at all.  
“Oh.” Richard’s obviously struggling to recalibrate his brain between that world he’s just glimpsed in the councillor’s office, and the normal everyday world that he’s used to. “Judy. Hi. What can I do for you?” Maybe that’s just the kind of sentence that naturally rolls out of Richard’s mouth, Helen thinks, because he’s so used to serving customers at the coffee shop? Maybe he _doesn’t_ still secretly like Judy at all.  
“You can take your damn stuff back,” Judy says, slipping a very familiar backpack off her shoulder. “And if you go see Mr Fields in the office like, right now? Maybe you can even avoid detention.” She may be talking to Richard, but her eyes are on Helen, who can’t quite meet that cool blue gaze.  
It’s not a surprise that Judy doesn’t like her – other girls rarely do – but this feels more… personal, somehow. Like I’ve gone and stolen her favourite toy, Helen thinks, as she busies herself scuffing the floor with the toe of one boot.  
“Thanks, Judy! That’s really sweet of you.” Richard takes the backpack with his left hand, clumsily swinging it over his shoulder – his right hand is still firmly closed around Helen’s hand. “She’s right, you know,” he turns to Helen, with an efficient little smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Let’s go talk to Mr Fields.”  
“She wants you back,” Helen whispers, as soon as Judy’s out of earshot.  
“Then she’s in for a bit of a wait,” Richard fires back, and Helen sees how his smile grows wider, how his eyes even seem to glow with it, now that it’s just the two of them again. “If I _believed_ in the concept of hell, I’d say that at the very least, it’d have to freeze over again…”  
“Again,” Helen asks, intrigued in spite of how awful everything is.  
“Oh, there’s this Harlan Ellison story,” Richard says, launching into one of his explanations as he changes their course towards the Teachers’ Office. “This demon accidentally causes it to snow in hell? So then, Satan has to make good on every stupid promise he’s ever made, and… And I don’t want to ruin it for you, but it’s really funny! I’ll just bring the book to school tomorrow – or you can come back with me and get it this afternoon, if you like?”  
“Okay,” Helen whispers, and allows herself to rest her forehead against Richard’s shoulder for just a second. “I can do that.”


	5. December: Throat-Cancer The Musical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You probably already know this, but the poem Richard quotes is from Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You can read the full version here:  
> https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Vogon_poetry  
> And yes, Richard makes some mistakes when he recites it. He must be nervous though, so let's give him a break. 
> 
> Also, you may want to check out this gloriously insane fan-made animation of the same poem, using a snippet of Richard's beloved radio play as the audio:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lXas5Ix65U
> 
> Finally, here is Helen's meditation music - possibly the most 90's music in the world except for Nirvana:  
> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=medwyn+goodall+way+of+the+dolphin  
> Don't say I didn't warn you. (It _is_ weirdly soothing, though.)

Snow blankets the town from the last week of November, which is also when Tweak Bros gets its annual Christmas makeover. Since the Tweaks don’t celebrate the holiday at all, the coffee shop is the only place they do bother to decorate. They spent the last Sunday of November stringing tinsel up across the dining area, and taping paper garlands to the walls. Each table now has a Santa figurine on it, all of them different, and a tea-light in a little red glass. The plastic Christmas tree is up in one corner, with a star on top instead of an angel, because Mom and Dad feel they have to draw a line somewhere. And best of all; they’ve done the Christmas squares all over the door and front window; stretching red sticky-tape across the glass in a big grid.  
And now it’s December, it’s snowing again and they’ve got Brenda Lee’s breathy voice coming out of the loudspeakers: “Everyone dancing merrily, in the new old-fashioned way…” The sun went down at four thirty, so it’s all cosy and dark in here, and almost every table has been taken. People are still keen to come try out the Christmas menu, in between shopping for presents. Unfortunately, that menu includes Dad’s signature turkey-and-stuffing sandwich, which Richard has _tried_ to persuade him to drop. Just like he’s tried with the ham-and-cheese sandwich, which is always on the regular menu. But, Dad is convinced those are their two best-selling sandwiches, so of course he’s not willing to budge. He’s also convinced Richard’s just going through a _phase_ with the whole vegetarian thing, not to _mention_ Dad’s never going to let him live the duck incident down. At least Mom’s kept the clipping from the paper, _and_ she’s framed it – even though she _says_ she just did it as a reminder to “raise Martin better”. That’s just Mom being funny. Or so he hopes.  
“Who brought Francoise Hardy in?” Simon’s thumbing through the CD rack, clearly hunting for something that _isn’t_ Christmas music. He got back last night, after a day and a half of driving in the green Oldsmobile he inherited from Mom. Richard had found it kind of unfair at the time, how Simon just got the car for free. After all, it’s not like their parents have any _more_ ancient cars knocking around the garage, and nobody but Dad gets to touch his sleek old ’61 Pontiac. So Richard’s only had Mom’s Jetta to practice in – and that’s when _she’s_ not using it, which it adds up to pretty much _never._  
Not that it _isn’t_ nice to have Simon back, though! Now that he’s done with his end-of-year finals, he’s got almost a whole month off to spend at home.  
“Oh, that one’s mine!” Helen looks up from the latte art she’s been practicing, under Dad’s watchful eye. “I don’t have a CD player where I’m staying, so my CD’s were just sitting around anyway. Do you like Francoise Hardy,” she adds, grinning up at Simon.  
“Yeah, she’s great!” Simon grins right back at her, and Richard feels a quick stab of jealousy in his chest. His slightly taller, much handsomer big brother – even the shoulder-length dreadlocks Simon’s acquired since he left in August somehow look good on him. Dad may be forcing him to wear a hairnet over them when he’s in the coffee shop, but Simon still manages to look effortlessly cool.  
“Here,” Dad’s saying, “You’ll want to pull your hand up right about now,” and Helen immediately does what she’s told, finishing off the last heart in her triple-heart chain. Dad grunts approvingly. It’s impossible to tell if Dad likes Helen or not. He’s pretty sure Mom does, though.  
When Helen first started helping out at the store, Dad took Richard aside and asked, “Should we be paying her?” It had been a fair question, since Helen had just helped herself to an apron from the shelf, and carried the tray with Mrs Carson’s spicy chai and blueberry muffin over to her table. Without asking anyone if they even wanted her to do it.  
“No,” Richard had whispered back fiercely, “Of course not!” He’d instantly known she’d be hurt if Dad offered; that all Helen had wanted was… somewhere to belong.  
“Not bad,” Martin’s saying, leaning over the counter so he can see. His last growth-spurt means he no longer needs to stand on his tip-toes to do it, either. “Better than _Richie’s_ triple heart,” he adds, which is clearly a lie.  
Helen doesn’t answer, she just giggles, quietly and happily, while she transfers the drink she’s just finished onto a saucer. She is getting better though, and not just at latte art. Just the other day, she’d made him a cappuccino to practice, and it had been good – really good.  
Richard busies himself stacking dirty mugs on another tray, to make it less obvious that he’s watching her. Still, it’s hard not to wonder about things like how Helen doesn’t freeze to death, when she’s wearing nothing but that long-sleeved dress with the little red flowers – modest enough for any Mormon grandmother, since the sleeves come down to her wrists and the skirt ends just above her ankles. Sure it’s warm in here, but he doesn’t like the thought of Helen waiting for the bus in that.  
He fills up that tray in no time; Holiday season’s always busy. Simon surprises him by getting the door to the back room, and following him inside.  
“So?” Simon pops the industrial dish-washer open, and grabs a big handful of mugs off Richard’s tray.  
“So, what,” Richard asks, dropping the tray on the counter with a clatter.  
“So are you two, you know…?” Simon jerks his head at the door behind him, “A thing?”  
“What? No!” Richard shoves the rest of the mugs in there as fast as he can, pours the powder in and slams the whole thing shut.  
“Why not?” His brother sounds so honestly puzzled that Richard can’t help but turn and look at him, even though he knows his ears are glowing bright red. “And don’t even try to convince me you’re not into her,” Simon adds, with all the authority of his two extra years.  
Richard yanks the dishwasher door open again, and starts fiddling with the settings. “We’ve held hands a couple times,” he mutters. “And there was this one time, when she said Orville was our love child.”  
Simon lets out a quick, surprised laugh. “Huh? Who’s Orville?”  
“This kid from the vegetarian club.” Richard can’t help but grin at the memory. “He’s ten, but he’s tiny, and you know that librarian with the pointy glasses? The one who _thinks_ she’s nice, but she’s actually awful?”  
“Yeah,” Simon nods, “The one with the _smell,_ right?”  
“That’s the one. The three of us went there to look for cookbooks, and she was pinching Orville’s cheek and going, “Ooh, who’s this, then,” and Orville was _so_ unimpressed. So then…” Richard closes his eyes for a second, playing the memory back in his mind. Helen had been wearing that necklace she’s made herself, from a key she found on the street, and the only T-shirt she owns. She’d layered over one of her countless long-sleeved shirts, the red one, with the ends tied in a knot around her waist. It looks like any old plain white shirt from the front, but it’s got “Karate Kid II – Filming on location in Hawaii” printed on the back, on top of a big red circle. So she and Richard had been chanting, “Wax on, wax off,” the whole way from the bus stop, while Orville had cringed and pretended not to know them – even though they’d been walking on either side of him. And he’d shushed them as soon as they stepped inside the library. “That was… late October, I think? Anyway, Helen said something like, “Oh, Orville’s our love-child, we had him before we even hit puberty!” And I didn’t know if I was supposed to laugh or not, but…” Richard shrugs. “I guess it was funny?”  
“Well, there you go!” Simon slaps him across the back, grinning from ear to ear. “She _obviously_ likes you!”  
“I don’t know.” Richard rubs his hands over his face, even though he _knows_ that means he’ll have to wash them now. Dead skin cells, and all that. “Helen’s sense of humour’s just weird, okay? Like, when she introduced herself in class at the start of term? She said her hobby was kicking dogs!”  
“Hah!” Simon shakes his head, making all his dreadlocks go swish-swish inside the hairnet. “Just make a move already!”  
“It’s not that easy, okay?!” Crap, Richard didn’t even mean to raise his voice! “Look,” he says, a _lot_ more quietly, “Even if she _did_ like me back, I think she’s scared of guys. _All_ guys,” he adds, giving his brother a meaningful glare. “So can we drop this already?”  
Simon just stares at him for a minute, like he’s trying to work out exactly _how_ nuts his little brother has gone. Then he puts his hand between Richard’s shoulder-blades, pushing him back towards the door. “Open it,” he says, and then the two of them stick their heads around it, peering out into the mood-lit café. Helen’s still behind the counter, clutching her stomach and laughing at some joke Martin must’ve cracked; laughing too hard to even practice her latte art. “Does she look scared to you?”  
Of course she doesn’t. She looks like she’s having the time of her life, but that doesn’t mean Richard can go and just make a _move_ on her. Not after they’ve been friends for all these months. Not after he swore to help her, and then discovered he can do exactly _nothing._  
“Here.” Suddenly, something is dangled in front of his nose – car keys! The keys to the Greenmobile, complete with that green plastic heart that dangles from the keychain. Incredulous, Richard looks up at his brother, who grins and says, “Why don’t you give her a ride home?” 

It’s cold enough that Richard’s finally relented and started wearing his hat; that fleece-lined one he got at a petrol station around this time last year. It’s a lumpy pale grey thing, with an ugly snowflake pattern printed in black along the brim, and discreetly sprinkled with coffee stains. Not exactly stylish, but not eye-catchingly weird, either. Of course, normal hats would be too boring for Helen, who’s wearing a black men’s bowler hat that she found in a thrift store. The kind of hat Charlie Chaplin would wear. “And I’ve got three pairs of tights on,” she tells him proudly, raising her right leg while she waits for Richard to get the Greenmobile heated up.  
“I’m surprised you can even walk like that,” Richard says, shaking his head. His teeth are clattering. Right now, it’s probably colder _inside_ the car than out in the snow.  
“I can waddle?” Helen grins, then suddenly whips off her shapeless black coat – easily two sizes too big for her – and dives butt-first into the passenger seat. “We can share this,” she offers, while she clacks her boots together out the door, to get the snow off.  
“I don’t –” Richard begins, before he clamps his mouth shut. He’s driving her home, so Helen will want to return the favour _somehow_ – she’s funny like that. “Want you to freeze though,” he amends quickly.  
“Nah. Three pairs of tights, remember? _And_ I’ve got a sweater.”  
That huge coat really does cover their legs, like a scratchy blanket, but they have to scrunch up really close together. Close enough that the rough wool from the sleeve of Helen’s sweater – mint green, of course, and also way too big for her –starts to tickle his nose when she holds up her hands to blow on them. Not that Richard minds this – he doesn’t mind it _at all_ – but he needs to be careful. He _could_ keep one arm on the wheel and try putting his other arm around her, but after everything Helen’s told him… would she even want that?  
In the end, he chickens out. Just sits there without talking until he decides that the Greenmobile is as warm as it’s going to get, and reluctantly tells Helen to lift her coat off the gear stick.  
“So, ah, how’s stuff at home,” Richard asks, feeling suddenly awkward, as he pulls out of his parking spot by the kerb.  
“At home,” Helen says, like he’s using foreign words. Like he’s asked her a question about what’s happening on the _moon_ or something. “He hasn’t… grabbed me again. If that’s what you mean?”  
“That’s… that’s good, I guess?” The road’s almost empty, and the snow-covered fir trees stretch across it, like two people touching fingers across a wide chasm in the ground, forming a kind of tunnel with their branches. Everything sparkles, in the Greenmobile’s headlights. “Did you get round to, to mentioning that stuff to Lorraine?”  
Helen turns her head to look out the window – it’s so clear she hasn’t done it that she doesn’t even need to say “No”. Very quietly, she says, “Lorraine would never believe me. But I’ve taken… steps, to stay safe.”  
“You mean; Buster’s lent you his knife?” Shit, Richard thinks, that was the most retarded joke ever! When Helen laughs at it anyway, he almost feels dizzy with relief.  
“No,” she says, patting her satchel, “I bought hair spray! I figure, if Gregory starts feeling _romantic_ again, I’ll just spray him in the eyes. I bring it _everywhere,_ ” Helen adds, and Richard can tell she’s doing her best to make it sound like she’s not scared at all. Like she’s _not_ wondering if she’ll just freeze up, the next time her foster father tries to touch her. “And I put my desk chair under the door now? I mean, at least I have my own bedroom here. Sharing rooms can be a total butt-pain.”  
Listening to Helen trying to convince herself that her situation isn’t really _that_ awful… It makes Richard want to stop the car, go stand in the middle of the road, and just scream. He hates this feeling he’s got, that the solution’s _right there,_ waiting for him. If he could only see it…  
“So anyway,” Helen says, pulling him out of his thoughts, “Do you know when you’ll be open during Christmas yet?”  
“Huh?” Wait, doesn’t she know yet? Fair enough Mom doesn’t talk much, but wouldn’t Martin have mentioned it to her? Or Dad, even? “We always close the shop for the holidays,” he says, and keeps his eyes on the road so he won’t have to see the disappointment on Helen’s face. “We work until the evening of the twenty-third, and then we lock up and go on holiday until right after New Year’s. It’s a Capitalist holiday, so my family doesn’t really celebrate it, you know?” Helen’s gone so quiet – is she _that_ upset? – that now, Richard’s downright _terrified_ to look at her. “We’re going to San Francisco again this year,” he babbles, “Which reminds me, you need to give me your address, okay? So I can send you a postcard?”  
To think he’s even been looking forward to that trip! But now, the guilt is like a tapeworm writhing in his stomach. Because what’s Helen going to do; cooped up for two weeks in that house, with _that man?_  
“It sounds fun,” she says, after the longest silence ever, “San Francisco. And I’d really love a postcard.”  
Richard finally looks at her, and Helen smiles at him, those milk-chocolate eyes locking onto his. “I’ll miss you, though,” she says, and Richard has to wrench his eyes back onto the road, before he goes and puts the Greenmobile in a ditch. Because suddenly; there’s no mistaking that look on her face.

Helen’s just finished doing her yoga on the floor of her bedroom, desk-chair rammed under the door handle in case anybody tries to come in. After all, she’s not exactly dressed for company; Yoga makes her sweat badly enough that she can only do it in a sports bra and tank top. To keep her hands free, she’s clipped her yellow Sony Walkman to the back of her bicycle shorts, which _mostly_ stops it from falling off and yanking the headphones halfway off her head. Worrying about that thing always stops Helen from losing herself completely in the movements; doing Yoga was a lot easier when she had a stereo in her room. Still, with a roommate, she’d had to share that stereo _and_ negotiate for the time alone in there to do her practice. So there are pros and cons to every situation.  
After maybe five minutes in Savasana – chest heaving, heart pounding, lying flat on the floor where she can feel every plank – Helen sits back up. Stretches her arms above her head, and wonders if she’ll ever be able to stop _worrying_ about stupid things. Like that ride in Richard’s brother’s car, and how he’d looked at her all funny when she let it slip that she’d miss him. Had that been too much, since they’re supposed to be just friends? Does he _know,_ now?  
She groans, and flops back down on the floor. Guys totally have a type, don’t they? And Helen’s _seen_ the type of girl Richard used to date; she doesn’t have a chance in hell.  
Oh well. Can’t stay on the floor forever.  
Last week, their whole class got these forms to fill in, for the sessions with the occupational guidance councillor they’ll be having sometime in the New Year. Helen almost wrote “Buddhist nun” on hers, but then she’d thought, Don’t Buddhist nuns have to shave their heads? Helen’s grown very attached to her French bob; even more so since Richard’s mom stared helping her even the ends out. It’s the world’s cutest haircut and she’d hate to shave it all off. So she’d written “Café worker” instead, then crossed out “worker” and written “owner” above it – go big, or go home, right?  
Two weeks without Tweak Bros, though.  
Nope. She’s not going to waste time thinking about that, when there’s nothing she can do about it. Helen gets to her feet, and almost pulls the chair from the door – but then she hears it. Running water. Ugh, someone beat her to the shower again. Hopefully there’ll still be some hot water left when they’re done; a cold shower in December isn’t exactly tempting.  
Helen grabs her gym sweater out of the drawer and quickly pulls it on; she’s already starting to shiver. She switches tapes; trading her Beginner’s Yoga cassette for Medwyn Goodall’s Way of the Dolphin. This tape had been a lucky find in the bargain bin of that New Age store she used to go to, back when she lived in Alamosa. How many houses ago was that, three? Not that it matters. Helen sits down on her bed, on top of the covers with her back against the wall. Right between the headboard and the corner of the windowsill. Crying won’t help. But there’s nothing like dolphin squeaks and synthesiser to take her mind off stupid things, like the boy she wants but can’t have.  
Helen reaches out, sticks her hand inside her satchel, and pulls out her scuffed and most treasured book; The Heart Sutra and Other Sutras. As the soothing music flows through her headphones, she reads, quietly moving her lips: “Your body’s true form is emptiness, and emptiness itself is no different from form. All that has form; is emptiness; and all that is empty…”  
Wait, what was that? There’s something else, interfering with the music. Someone shouting? Ugh, it’s probably just Gregory, fed up with Buster and Jamie.  
Wrinkling her nose, Helen shifts her position a little before she starts to read again: “…all that is empty; has a form. The same is true of feelings…” Stupid feelings, she thinks, before she forces her mind back on track, “…of feelings, perceptions, impulses and – ”  
“A lurgid bee!”  
“What?” Helen sits bolt upright – that _definitely_ came from right outside her window! And is that… music? Leaving the book on her pillow – it’s not like she can concentrate now – she shuffles across her bed on all fours, and pops the window-latch, peering into the darkness.  
Richard is standing out there in the snow, in that small patch of light cast by the street-lamp on the other side of the fence. He’s strumming a guitar, but since when does he even _play_ the guitar? And how did he get into the Robinsons’ back-yard, anyway? He spots her in the window, and raises his hand to wave, shouting, “A lurgid bee, that mordiously hath blurted out its earted jurtles!” Grinning from ear to ear, while he keeps strumming what she realises are the same three chords, over and over. “Grumbling into a rancid, festering, confectious organ squealer!”  
It suddenly reminds her of being twelve, and reading Ivanhoe. In the world of that book, it had been perfectly normal for a troubadour to go stand under a lady’s window, singing and playing his lute. Maybe they declaimed poetry too; Helen’s memory of the novel is pretty hazy. But wait, is _that_ what this is?  
“And living glupules fart and stipulate,” Richard is shouting, “Like jowling, meated liverslime! Groop, I implore thee! My foontling turtledoves! And hoopitously drangle me…”  
Helen has to laugh – she’ll _die_ if she doesn’t laugh. Leaning out of her window, howling like a demented witch. She can’t even hear Richard anymore, over her own breathless cackling. Still - the words, gibberish or not, the words don’t matter. But that he’s here, that he _came!_ That matters, more than anything.  
“Or else!” Richard stops strumming for a second, and holds one finger up, “I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon!” Then he throws down one final, dramatic chord, and yells, “See if I don’t!”  
For just one endless moment, they stare at each other, and Helen notices how red his hands are, from playing in the cold. How he’s taken his hat off and stuffed it in his pocket; and now little snowflakes are slowly landing on his head, melting into his hair. Then Richard shouts, “Helen! That was the third worst poem in the _universe!_ Did you like it?”  
Helen’s smiling and blushing, and she just wants to hide her face in her hands, and definitely, _definitely_ not say what she’s thinking, but no. Not after he’s serenaded her, out there in the freezing cold. Helen draws a deep breath. “I like _you,_ ” she shouts back, as loud as she can.  
It’s hard to see from all the way up on the second floor, but Helen could swear Richard’s grin just got wider. “In that case, Helen – will you go out with me?”  
“Wait!” She points at him through the open window, “Stay right there! I’m coming down!”  
Helen ducks her head under the bed to see where her Docs landed, when she kicked them off after getting back from Tweak Bros. She quickly retrieves them and pulls them on, not even bothering to _look_ for a pair of socks. Yanks her desk-chair away, and clomps down the stairs. She barely remembers to pull her coat off the hooks by the front door, before she tumbles out into the cold. Running around the house, rather than going out through the back door.  
Of course, there’s no such thing as privacy in a foster home; the rest of them are all watching from the kitchen windows. Lorraine’s wearing her bathrobe; so that was _her_ in the shower earlier. Buster even has his nose pressed against the glass. For once in her life, though? Helen really doesn’t care. She just hurls herself into Richard’s arms, while he awkwardly tries to hug her back without dropping the guitar in the snow. The icy air bites into her bare legs, but Helen doesn’t care about that either, because now they are kissing. Desperately, hungrily, melting into each other, like snow melting against warm skin.  
She doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t need to. 

“So,” Gregory says, blowing out smoke, “That skinny twerp’s your _boyfriend_ now?”  
Helen sneezes. It figures, doesn’t it, that after a moment of pure magic and endless kisses, reality will still be waiting. And right now, her reality is a middle-aged man with mutton-chops and a sagging moustache, twirling a lit cigarette between his fingers. Helen is… really not fond of cigarettes.  
“Yes, sir,” she mutters, dropping her gaze to the reddish-brown tiles on the floor. She sneezes again, and slides her hand up one coat-sleeve to rub her arm. Gregory’s probably expecting her to answer back, but Helen has no intention of getting herself into even more trouble. After all these years, cigarettes still make her so stupidly nervous.  
“You can’t bring him into the house,” Lorraine says, and she’s probably got her “firm-but-fair” face on – Helen’s not about to look up and check. When Gregory makes an indignant noise, Lorraine adds, “For God’s sake, Greg, she’s a pretty girl. She was gonna find a boyfriend eventually.”  
Woof, woof, Helen thinks, and risks a quick glance over at the two boys. Jamie looks confused, but Buster is grinning, and giving her a sneaky thumbs-up. That makes her feel a little bit better.  
“I suppose,” Gregory has another drag on his cigarette, “If you don’t let him get you into _trouble,_ it should be okay.” Helen knows exactly what he’s talking about – that she’d better not go and get herself knocked up. She’s lucky, really, that she doesn’t have it in her to take offence right now.  
“Yes, sir,” she says again. Ugh, she’s going to have to… well, fine. “Thank you,” she adds, still addressing her words to the floor. If he’s not going to outright forbid her to see Richard, what’s a little humiliation? Emptiness itself is no different from form, Helen reminds herself. Willing her annoyance to dissolve, willing her embarrassment to fade into nothing.  
“I don’t get it, though.” A kitchen chair scrapes as Gregory pulls it out, and he sighs a little when he sits on it. That’s such an old-man thing to do. “Guy shows up here, and performs Throat-Cancer The Musical on the lawn, and that’s it? _That’s_ what it takes for you to like him?”  
Throat-Cancer The Musical, Helen thinks. She’d better try to remember that, it’ll make Richard laugh. She doesn’t want to think about the real implications of Gregory’s question, which is _Why him, and not me?_ She remembers that touch, that breath on her neck, and it’s suddenly all she can do not to vomit all over the kitchen floor.  
“I’ve liked him since the start of the semester,” Helen says, forcing herself to look up, and right into Gregory’s eyes. Then she sneezes again, which gives her the perfect excuse to look away. “Would it be okay if I go take a shower now,” she asks meekly. “I think I might be coming down with something.”  



	6. January: All I have to offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for mentions of groping and unwanted touching, and really detailed mentions of child abuse. If that's going to upset you, please don't read past the third paragraph of this chapter. 
> 
> Anyway, if you're curious about the T-shirt Richard's brought Helen back as a souvenir, this is the picture that's printed on it: http://www.peacein2004.com/haight_ashbury_fair_posters/18.htm  
> For those of you who don't know, Haight-Ashbury is the "alternative district" in San Francisco, complete with a holistic traveler's lodge and an anarchist bookstore; so it's somewhere the Tweak family would feel right at home.

“So what happened,” Helen asks, as she pulls away from him a little. “You promised you were going to tell me!” They’re nestled together like spoons in a drawer on Richard’s narrow bed, on top of the covers. He’s got his back pressed against the wall, propped up on his elbow so he can kiss her. Helen’s lying on her back, her hair splayed out over his pillow. Her lips drawn apart in a lazy smile, because she knows she has the upper hand.  
Richard grunts and ducks his head to try and catch her lips again. If there’s _one_ thing he doesn’t feel like talking about right now…  
“Talk,” Helen threatens, pressing her finger against his lips. “Or I’m withholding all kissing privileges.”  
Damn, she’s adorable when she’s trying to be all strict. Now that he’s _allowed_ to just feel all these feelings he’s been suppressing for so long, and like, _bathe_ in them, Richard keeps getting lost in the details of her. Like that fresh-cut grass smell her hair has right now; it always smells like this after she’s washed it. Or how long Helen’s eyelashes are – like, easily as long as an alpaca’s!  
“Hey, Earth to Richie!” She snaps her fingers under his nose, “What’re you thinking about?”  
“Alpacas,” he replies; then laughs when he realizes how stupid that must sound.  
Helen starts to giggle. “Seriously?” She’s wearing the T-shirt he brought back from San Fran for her; with the poster from a past summer’s Haight-Ashbury street-fair printed on the front. It’s got swirly purple borders, and a lady in the middle wearing a purple skirt and crop top, and sort of dancing around in the mist. Richard only bought the thing because he thought it’d go with that purple satchel she’s always dragging everywhere. By now, he’s had a chance to ask her about the golden eyeball thing that’s embroidered on it, and Helen’s explained that it’s called the Eye of the Buddha. The satchel’s sitting down at the foot-end of his bed right now, golden eye staring at him; Richard is worried he’ll kick it off if he’s not careful. He really hadn’t put much thought into that purchase at all, but Helen had loved the T-shirt so much that she’d immediately dyed one of her long-sleeved white tees a matching lavender purple; tying knots on the elbows to make little white swirls there. That’s what she’s wearing underneath it right now, as a matter of fact. “Why alpacas?”  
They remind me of you, Richard almost says; then thinks better of it. Probably not the most flattering thing to say, right? “Why _not_ alpacas,” he says instead, shifting his weight so he can lie down next to her and rest his hand on her thigh. “Anyway. Remember that poultry farm I told you about?”  
Helen nods, and they are lying so close that her little button nose rubs against his cheek.  
“Okay. So I wrote the article, and of course it got rejected by our douchebag editor. And I tried to argue with him – offered to modify how I’d phrased things, let the pictures speak for themselves more, but…” Richard shrugs. “He just didn’t want to listen. I mean, the irony is that if I’d only shut up and _waited,_ I could probably have taken over from him this year, since he was a senior. But instead, I, ah… said some stuff.” He nuzzles her neck so she won’t see him blush, but his whole face feels like it’s glowing red-hot anyway. “And that’s how I got kicked off the paper.”  
“Hmm.” Helen turns over on her side, so they’re literally nose to nose, and it’s impossible to look away from her pale brown eyes. “Doesn’t sound like it was the right place for you, anyway. Was that what made you… not popular?”  
Richard only lets out _one_ loud bark of laughter, before he’s managed to slap his hand over his mouth. “Sorry, no, um… I didn’t stop there. I, ah, sort of hijacked the talent show?”  
Helen blinks. “Okay? So how did you…?”  
Richard pulls his hand through his curls. Looks up at the ceiling, where that brown stain around the base of the lamp seems to have spread. There’s got to be a leak in the roof somewhere… “Sonia, the girl who took the photos? She told me I could have them, as an apology for not backing me up. Said she didn’t want to get kicked off the paper and have that on her record, since this was kind of what she wanted to do for a living. But she said she really respected what I was trying to do. And I did _not_ have a crush on her,” he adds, holding one finger up right under Helen’s nose, because he can _see_ her face start to cloud over. Helen getting jealous over _him_ is not something Richard would have expected in a million years, but he has to admit it’s cute. “Anyway, I was still dating Judy at the time. But I think you’d have liked Sonia. She dressed like Georgia O’Keefe and smoked a pipe – and she was only into girls, anyway.”  
“I don’t really like smoking.” Helen’s face is suddenly very carefully neutral; her eyes don’t even seem to sparkle anymore. It’s like a curtain’s been drawn – like she’s switched some part of herself off. And Richard wants to ask her what’s wrong, but he knows there’s no point – when she gets like this, Helen won’t let anybody in. Not even him.  
“Fair enough,” Richard says, nudging her a little; then slipping his arm around her waist when Helen doesn’t nudge back. At least she lets him do it, but her eyes are a million miles away. “Anyway, I told the teacher who was in charge – it was Mr Fields, actually – that I was going to recite some poetry. And that this poetry came with slides to, ah, set the scene?”  
The ghost of a smile tugs at Helen’s mouth. Her lips are so plump and juicy-looking, still speckled with the plum-coloured lipstick she was wearing before they started making out. “Did you bring a guitar, too?”  
“Nah,” he tells her, trying to hide how relieved he is, “The guitar was just for you. And technically I wasn’t even lying, because I made _most_ of it rhyme. Took me _hours_ to write.”  
This wins him the tiniest giggle. “Really? So what rhymes with poultry farm?”  
“Grievous harm.” Richard grins back at her. “That one was _so_ hard to come up with, I was really proud of it.”  
“You should be.” All of a sudden, Helen’s returned to him completely, flashing him the full force of her naughty grin while she slides her hand through his hair. “So you treated the entire school to rhyming Chicken Auschwitz? And then people got mad at you?”  
“Judy was the only one in our class who’d even _talk_ to me afterwards,” Richard says, “And that was _after_ she’d slapped me in front of everyone.” He’s kept telling himself since last year that it doesn’t matter, but… Richard had been friends with some of those guys since _kindergarten_. And all of a sudden, he was _nothing_ to them. “I mean, even though I was kind of a nerd and sucked at sports, nobody ever treated me like that before. Like I didn’t even exist.”  
“You have to sacrifice something,” Helen says, before she plants a chaste, feather-light kiss on his lips. “For what you believe in. To make it truly worth something. That’s what I think, anyway.”  
Richard grabs her face in both hands, pulling her closer for another, more intense kiss. For a while, there’s no need to talk. Then Helen says, “Lucky for me, I guess.”  
“Huh?”  
“Come on – if you were still Mr Popular, and still had your friends and your cheerleader with her flat little ass…”  
“ _Helen,_ ” he says, trying his best to sound all horrified, and not like he’s choking his laughter down.  
“It’s like a pancake! I’d say that even if I _liked_ her, okay? But if you’d still had all of _them,_ ” her voice is suddenly very small, “Would you really have given _me_ the time of day?”  
“You _know_ I would have,” Richard whispers fiercely, locking his eyes onto hers. “Seriously, Helen. I think you had me at “kicking dogs”.”  
Helen lets out an unladylike snort. “Ugh, that was so _stupid,_ ” she groans, nuzzling his chest. “Way to convince everyone I was a total lunatic, right?”  
“You know,” Richard drawls, “There’s this crazy lady a couple blocks down the road, who has this evil Alsatian? I mean, I love animals and all, but this thing _always_ tries to bite us when we walk past her house. This one time, he pushed his nose through the planks and almost got Martin in the arm! So like,” he props himself up on his elbow again, and waggles his eyebrows suggestively, “If you want me to show you a good time?”  
The best way to make Helen laugh is to surprise her. It works _almost_ every time. She laughs until she nearly rolls right off the bed; Richard has to throw out an arm and grab her. “So what about you,” he asks, using the rescue as an excuse to hold her extra tight. “Would you have liked _me_ if I was still all mainstream?”  
“How could I _not_ love a guy who breaks his leg to save a duck?” Helen’s grin is toothy and wide. “Besides, like… have you _seen_ yourself?”  
“Uh?” Richard is confused. “What do you mean?”  
Helen sits up abruptly, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and folding her arms. She seems… almost offended. “You _do_ realize you’re like, _super_ good-looking. Right?”  
_Seriously?!_ Richard flops back on the mattress, and now it’s his turn to laugh, long and hard. “Rose-tinted glasses, Helen,” he snorts, when he’s calmed down enough to talk. “Isn’t it _awesome,_ being in love?!”

“I made a new design,” Orville says, flipping his sketchbook open, as soon as they’re done singing Cows With Guns. Helen says he’s over at their house all the time now, playing with Buster and even with Jamie, who seems to think watching Orville draw is better than watching TV. “I based it on the end of the song,” he adds, a little unnecessarily. Richard can see that straightaway; it’s a helicopter cockpit full of chickens. Orville’s given each chicken a distinctive look – one’s sitting on top of the pilot’s seat, wearing an eye-patch and smoking a cigar that it holds up in one claw. This one’s obviously the chicken in charge, giving the orders. Two more are steering the helicopter, one of them flapping and terrified; the other one concentrating, with its little tongue sticking out of its beak. And a fourth chicken has got both claws wrapped around the joystick, head turned to somehow grin at you with its beak wide open. This one’s wearing some sort of bandolier, with at least seven pouches on it – always with the pouches. “What do you think?”  
“I love it,” Helen tells him, with a huge smile. “But, um, where’s the text supposed to go?”  
Orville’s face falls. “Oh,” he says, “I hadn’t thought about that.” The drawing’s so busy, with so many little gags thrown in, like the guano dripping down the back of the pilot’s chair. It takes up pretty much the whole page.  
“How about speech bubbles,” Richard suggests, quickly warming to his own idea. “If we cut them out from a different piece of paper, and write in them beforehand?” He has a quick sip of coffee, which is what they use Helen's flask for, now that they no longer need to mix sauce for their lunch. “Then we could stick the bubbles to the page with wall-tack before we copy it.” It was all Helen’s idea, but why didn’t he think of bringing coffee to school? Like, years ago? It’s ingenious! “And then it’ll be like the _chickens_ are telling people to come to join us. How’s that sound?”  
“That… That could work,” Orville says, slowly nodding to himself, as he flips his sketchbook open on a fresh page.  
Richard hadn’t been sure how Orville would react, back in December, when he and Helen started dating and holding hands around school all the time. But all Orville had done was shrug. Like he’d totally seen this coming; even when the two of them hadn’t.  
“We need to start planning our next cooking session, too,” Helen says, absently tugging on her key necklace, while Orville is busy jotting down captions and drawing bubbles around them. It may be January and it may be freezing, but Helen’s wearing that T-shirt he got her in Haight-Ashbury again, tucked inside a burgundy flannel shirt today, over her little black denim skirt. And purple tights, obviously to match the shirt. It’s weird; Richard’s seen her in those shortalls, the mini skirt _and_ a denim jacket – but never in actual jeans. Or any kind of pants, really. Doesn’t she get _cold?_  
Now Helen puts her own cup of coffee down, before she pulls out her bulging recipe book – Richard has started calling it the Grimorie. It’s full of handwritten recipes, as well as a whole bunch of photocopied ones that Helen’s glued in. And she’s decorated it with cute cat stickers she’s picked up somewhere, giving the cats speech bubbles like “Who needs fish when you have cheese?” and “Tofu makes me purr.” Flipping the Grimoire open, she goes on, “I really want to try out this lasagne recipe, but maybe with a small batch first? Just in case it’s no good?”  
“Want me to halve the ingredients,” Richard offers – Helen’s math is pretty atrocious – before he helps himself to more coffee. He keeps two old Tweak Bros cups in his locker now; the logos so faded, you can barely even see them anymore. He swears you can still taste the OXO if you try drinking from the plastic lid. Helen bought a little milk carton at lunchtime, to mix into the coffee since she’s still not used to taking it black. It’s cold enough inside the building for the milk to have survived until now – that probably isn’t a good thing. “Or we could chance making just one normal portion, and plan on having that for lunch early next week?”  
That’s when Orville, still focused on the page in front of him, mutters, “Chickens are so gross.”  
Richard looks over at Helen, who shrugs. She may be seeing more of the kid now, but she seems just as confused by this statement as Richard is. “Well,” he says, “I went to a poultry farm once. They had to sit in their own droppings, poor thi– ”  
“That’s disgusting,” Orville snaps, looking up abruptly. “Why would _anybody_ eat something that sits in its own shit?”  
Richard realizes his mouth is wide open, and slowly closes it.  
“Um,” Helen says, very cautiously, “Orville? Don’t you… feel sorry for the chickens?”  
“No,” Orville tells her flatly. “You weren’t there, okay? Like, you’re the nicest person in the world, but there’s no _way_ you can understand how I feel.”  
“I can try?” Helen tucks a stray lock of red hair behind Orville’s ear, while she smiles at him.  
Orville lets out a deep sigh. It’s a sigh that contains, if not _all_ the suffering in the world, then at least a significant percentage. “My class went to visit a farm,” he says, his normally flat voice quivering just a little bit. “It was the worst day of my _life_.”  
“What happened,” Helen asks gently, shifting her hand so she can rub Orville’s back.  
“They stank.” Orville shudders, dislodging her hand. “The chickens, the pigs, the cows… The chickens just walked around everywhere, just… just _squawking,_ and flapping their nasty wings at you, and crapping on your shoes… Like, I know free-range eggs are supposed to taste better or whatever, but is it really _worth_ it when they’re not even scared of people anymore? Any second they could just fly up and start pecking your eyeballs out, and _eat_ them!”  
“Actually,” Richard begins, “Chickens have their wing-feathers –”  
“And the cows were _insane,_ ” Orville goes on, shaking his head slowly. “They were just walking _around_ in this huge field behind a fence, right? But they were so fast; they’d just walk right up to you and stick their heads out between the planks. These _huge_ heads!” Orville holds his hands up, like he’s trying to encircle a beach ball. “And their eyes just sort of rolled around crazily, and they had these huge slimy tongues, and they _stank!_ Everything stank,” he goes on, “But the pigs? The pigs were the _worst._ ”  
“Okay.” Helen folds her hands on top of the Grimoire in her lap. “Do you want to tell us about the pigs, Orville?”  
Orville shudders, from the top of his head to the tips of his bright green sneakers. “They were enormous. Like, I mean _really_ enormous, okay? Some of them were almost as big as a _car_. A small car,” he amends quickly. “They were just… Walking around in the mud, and stepping in their own huge lumps of shit. Burying their noses in it! But then, one of them suddenly started peeing? And this other pig walked up behind him and put his head under his belly, and started _drinking_ it! I thought I was gonna be sick!” Orville has grown very pale, his fingers tightly gripping his sketch-pad. “How could anybody eat an animal that’ll just stand there and drink pee?!”  
Richard has never heard Orville talk so much at the one time. “Orville,” he says, amazed at how calm and steady his own voice comes out, “Let me get this straight. Did you become a vegetarian because,” he has to draw a deep breath to steady himself, “Because you hate animals too much to eat them?”  
“Does,” Orville swallows, and Richard suddenly realizes that the kid is about to cry, “Does that not count? Are you gonna… kick me out?”  
For a second or two, there is no sound at all. You could literally hear a pin drop, hell; you could hear the _grass_ grow. Orville looks at Richard, and Richard looks at Helen, until Helen’s whole face starts to twitch. Suddenly she’s laughing; loud enough to make them both jump in their seats.  
“Don’t be silly,” Helen snorts, before she gets up, puts the Grimoire down on her empty chair, and pulls a startled Orville into her arms. There are tears running down her cheeks, and she’s laughing too hard to even try to wipe them away. “I think you’re just wonderful,” she goes on, in between giggling and panting for breath, “In fact, I’d totally marry you if you were old enough!”  
Richard stands up abruptly. His mug slips from his suddenly limp fingers and smashes against the floor, splattering his jeans with lukewarm coffee and sending bright red pottery shards flying off in all directions. He only notices this distantly; a minor detail. Because finally; he’s _got_ it.  
“Helen?” His own voice sounds odd, hollow. “When did you say your birthday was again?”  
“It’s next month,” Helen replies, all confused, “February eleventh. Are you okay?”  
“I have to… check something.” City Hall closes at five, right? If Richard leaves _now,_ he’ll be able to make it. “Would you mind cleaning up… it’s important,” he babbles, waving his hand over the mess on the floor. It’s not just _important,_ it’s the solution to _everything_.  
“Not before you tell Orville he’s not kicked out of Vegetarian Club,” Helen replies, while Orville, suddenly embarrassed, tries to squirm out of her grip. “Because as Keeper of the Grimoire, I object to that!” She’s half kidding, half serious, and so cute he almost has to run over there and kiss her, never mind that she’s got a wriggling boy in her lap.  
“Orville,” Richard says, while he grabs his backpack from the floor before the steady trickle of coffee can reach it, “I would never kick you out. Your reasons are your business.” He almost trips over the stereo chord, as he runs towards the door. “And you draw the _best_ flyers,” he adds, before he tosses his music room key to Helen, who effortlessly plucks it out of the air. “Lock up for me, okay?” He doesn’t wait for her answer, just dives out into the corridor and pulls the door shut behind him, before he breaks into a run. Because this could be it, this could be _it!_

“Are you coming back with us today,” Helen asks Orville, as they trudge through the snow towards the elementary school. After they’d swiped a toilet roll from the utility closet down the hall and wiped up all the coffee Richard spilled, Helen had dumped all the pieces of his mug that she could get to into the wastepaper basket. There’s one still wedged under the piano that’ll just have to stay there, and be an unsolvable mystery for whoever is strong enough to move the damn thing. Then she’d finished up her own coffee and adjourned the meeting, because it just hadn’t been the same without Richard there.  
“Actually, Buster’s coming to my house, to watch Batman,” Orville replies, and he sounds almost ashamed that he’s not extending the invitation to her. “Is that okay? My parents are totally fine with it,” he adds, like he’s worried Helen won’t believe him. “My dad said he can stay for dinner.”  
“That’s fine,” she tells Orville absently, adjusting her bowler hat so her bangs won’t get into her eyes. Orville’s parents are probably over the moon that he’s finally made a friend – even if that friend _is_ the same boy who gave him a nosebleed on the first day of term. And ever since those two started hanging out, Buster’s left his knife back at the house, in the room he shares with Jamie. Buster gets angry a lot less, too, and when his temper _does_ flare up, it never lasts as long as it used to. So Helen’s more than keen for their odd little friendship to continue.  
Buster and Jamie are over on the elementary school’s playground, messing about on the tire swings. Both of them standing on their tire, and it looks like they’re having some sort of contest about who can swing higher – maybe even go all the way round. Helen can’t see _that_ ending well. Oh, Buster’s like a monkey, he’ll be fine – but Jamie doesn’t have his brother’s reflexes or survival instincts. It hasn’t even been that long since he got the cast off his arm.  
“Hey,” she yells, waving. “Buster, Jamie, let’s go!”  
“Helen,” Jamie shouts, as he throws his arms around her legs, hugging her tight. He’s so small and thin for his age, and above his narrow, heavy-lidded brown eyes, Jamie’s forehead is visibly shorter than a normal child’s. His head’s kind of small, too, and there’s no little dip in that portion of skin between his short, flat nose and his thin upper lip, none at all. His face is like a textbook example of foetal alcohol syndrome. Apparently, Jamie could say a total of nine words when he came to the Robinsons last year, and two of those were “No” and “Ow”. But now, after all those months of Lorraine patiently talking to him and reading him the sort of books you’d normally read to a toddler, Jamie can almost talk like a normal seven-year-old.  
“Hey, you,” Helen says, shifting the weight of her satchel before she picks Jamie up by the armpits – even with his backpack on, he still weighs practically nothing. It’s stupid of her, really. She always ends up making the same mistake, and getting attached. Even though she _knows_ it’s a bad idea. But it’s hard to remember why, when Jamie is wrapping his stubby little legs around her waist and almost screaming with happy laughter. “Buster told you, right? He’s going with Orville. And you’re coming with me. Okay?”  
“Okay,” Jamie readily agrees, nuzzling his face into Helen’s lumpy black coat.  
Buster and Orville wave goodbye to them before they go off in the opposite direction, to catch the bus to Orville’s house. Heads close together, whispering about superheroes, probably. She can’t help but remember how Orville had almost cried, back there in the music room. Even though he and Buster are best friends now, it probably doesn’t hurt Orville’s social standing that he’s also friends with two seniors. He must have spent so many hours working on that drawing – and he hates chickens! Helen suddenly starts to giggle, shaking her head while she puts Jamie back down. All that work, just because Orville had hoped Richard would like it.  
As they walk towards their bus stop, Jamie slipping his cold little hand inside hers, Helen can’t help but wonder what it was Richard rushed off to do. The green Oldsmobile is missing from the school parking lot; that was the first thing she checked for when they got out. It’s Richard’s car now; his brother just _gave_ it to him, the day he went back to Fort Collins. Helen still can’t quite wrap her head around such absurd generosity, but apparently, that had been Simon’s plan all along. Helen had been over at the Tweaks’, to give Richard the scarf she’d spent most of Christmas break knitting – that had been the official excuse, anyway. She’s not that great with patterns, but at least she knows how to knit one row and pearl the next, and she’d come up with a sort of system of stripes, in three different shades of blue. Blue, to match his eyes. Richard’s worn that scarf every day since. It always tugs at Helen’s chest in the _best_ way, when he pulls up outside the Robinsons’ house and she sees that blue scarf wrapped around his neck.  
Simon had shrugged the whole thing off, said he was in negotiations with a class-mate to buy that guy’s much smaller, less annoying car. “So,” he’d drawled, “Merry Christmas”, before he tossed the keys into Richard’s hands.  
“It’s January _third,_ ” Richard had replied, too startled to even say thanks, but Simon had just laughed.  
“Happy Tolkien’s birthday, then!” And Simon had reached out to muss Richard’s hair, before Richard yanked him into a big hug.  
So since the start of term, Richard’s picked her up _and_ driven her back almost every day – just the two of them, singing along to whatever’s on the radio. Buster hasn’t tried to angle for a ride _once,_ which is something Helen appreciates – that kid is perceptive. Even though Richard will sometimes drive all three of them back to the house, there’s an unspoken agreement that mornings are just for Helen and him. There’s also the message it sends to Gregory, who’s made more than one comment about “that green shitbox” blocking up his driveway. He seems to think of Richard as his _rival,_ which is so gross that it really doesn’t bear thinking about. 

Helen is making Jamie a sandwich – strawberry jam with cheese on top, because that boy likes the _weirdest_ things – when she hears the front door click open. Senses heightened by fear, she can smell him before he even walks into the kitchen; and it’s not just the tobacco. Gregory has a sour odour that’s uniquely his own; Helen has quietly classified it as “onions and man-sweat”. The first thing she does is lift Jamie off the kitchen counter – he loves sitting up there, banging his heels against the cutlery drawer, but he’s not allowed to – and hold her finger over her lips. _Shush._ Jamie grins up at her; he can keep a secret.  
“Hello, beautiful,” Gregory says from behind her. He sounds so familiar, so… fond, like he’s already convinced himself Helen _wants_ this attention. Suddenly, his hand is under her skirt, one long finger tracing the curve of her butt-cheek.  
Helen screams – not for long, she cuts it off as fast as she can. Because Jamie will get scared; and Gregory will get angry. He’s already pulled his hand back, and there’s this endless moment where anything could happen, and everything hangs in the balance. Jamie’s bottom lip is quivering, but Helen is afraid to even breathe.  
Then, Gregory snorts. “Dress like that,” he says, his voice hardening, “And you’re practically asking for it.” There is a sound, a sound she knows all too well – the snap of a lighter, followed by the almost silent flare of a flame, as it bites into the tip of a cigarette. “Jamie,” Gregory says. “Go to your room.”  
If she still had a voice, Helen might say that she’s making Jamie a sandwich. If she still had control of her limbs, she’d dash across the room and grab her satchel off that kitchen chair she dropped it on so carelessly, when she first got back in. But there’s a part of her that’s always known she’d never have the nerve to pull that hairspray on Gregory.  
Jamie’s hand closes around her shirtsleeve, tugging. “Helen,” he says, and his tone is pleading.  
“I said go to your _room,_ Jamie,” Gregory snaps.  
To be fair, Helen’s never seen him lay a hand on either of the boys. No hitting, and no groping, either. He’s even been sort of nice to them sometimes. Teaching Buster how to stack the wood in the back yard to dry it out properly. Letting Jamie ride on his shoulders when they went to the pumpkin patch for Halloween. But still. Jamie’s grip loosens, and he backs out of the kitchen, crying for real now. Loud, ugly sobs.  
Helen has to look away. She hears his little feet, still in those little red sneakers Lorraine bought him at Target, slapping against the wooden stairs. It would help if she could breathe properly, but the air only goes as far as the top of her chest, before it flutters out of her mouth again, and makes her gasp for her next breath. She’d swear she can feel it, that hot glow of the cigarette, the warmth of it making the skin of her neck heat up. Her eyes follow it, swivelling madly, as Gregory moves it from his right hand to his left. That’s why she doesn’t realize what he’s doing, until his free hand is under her T-shirt. He slides it down, lets it rest on her stomach for a second before he brings it back up her torso, hooking two fingers under the left cup of her bra. Pushing it upwards, until he can close his whole hand around her breast, cupping it like a magician hiding a ball. _And now, for my next trick…_  
While he rubs her nipple with his thumb and forefinger, Gregory presses his cheek against Helen’s cheek, stretching his jaw past her so he can smoke. Eyes slitted from enjoyment, like a cat stretched out in the sun, he pulls on his cigarette while Helen stands as still as she can, biting down hard on her bottom lip. Don’t move, don’t scream. She can’t stop the tears from running down her cheeks, but Gregory doesn’t seem to have noticed them. He’s moved on to her other breast now, only pausing to flick some of the ash into the sink, where the breakfast dishes still sit. Two plates, three cereal bowls, juice glasses and coffee cups. Helen can feel her nipple hardening in his grip, completely against her will, and Gregory’s breathing is getting all ragged. One of the juice glasses has been chipped, and Helen focuses all her attention on that chip for a second, that jagged little V in the rim of the glass. Better that, than to think about what’s being pressed against the back of her leg, because her nipples aren’t the only things hardening around here.  
Gregory abruptly pulls his hand out, and grabs her jaw between his calloused fingers instead. Forcing Helen to turn her face towards him, just as he takes one final drag on his cigarette, before he smashes his lips against hers. Blowing smoke right into her mouth, and pushing his tongue between her teeth while she’s still choking. That hand holding the cigarette moves right past her arm – and now, she _does_ scream – before he stubs it out into one of the coffee cups. It sizzles wetly down there, and Helen’s knees give out – if not for Gregory’s arm around her waist, she’d be sitting on the floor already. He whispers, “That boy will never want you like I do. Not when he sees what you’ve been hiding from him.”  
Then he lets her go, so abruptly that she has to catch herself on the sides of the sink. Her bra is still stretched across her chest, her breasts dangling free beneath it, but straightening herself out is the last thing on Helen’s mind right now. She manages to hold it in until she hears the kitchen door close behind him before she starts to retch, vomiting all over the breakfast dishes. Crying properly now, sobbing and hiccupping, while she forces herself to rinse the dishes off and wash them all by hand. Otherwise, who knows what Lorraine will think – that she’s been drinking in school? Maybe she’ll even search Helen’s bag for a bottle, and then she’ll find the book, and Helen can’t let _that_ happen. Oh, but her hands are shaking.  
After she’s grabbed the kitchen towel that’s hanging from the oven door, and spread it out on the counter to dry the dishes on that – the dish-rack next to the sink is already full, and her hands are shaking way too hard, now, to attempt to dry anything – Helen finally tucks her breasts back inside her bra. She’s still crying – she’s been crying this whole time – but it’s calmed down now, the sobs have slowed down. Her eyes are stinging with mascara, and rubbing them with her shirtsleeve only seems to make it worse.  
Grabbing her satchel from that kitchen chair, Helen swings it over one shoulder and goes upstairs to check on Jamie. Taking the stairs slowly, one at a time like an old lady, her Doc’s thumping heavily against the wood. She stops by the bathroom, just to wash her face, because the mascara is really starting to burn now, and spreads the washcloth out over the side of the sink to dry.  
“Jamie,” she asks, knocking quietly on Buster and Jamie’s door. There’s no answer, but then Jamie doesn’t talk much, and the door is open anyway. So Helen lets herself in, and something twists painfully inside her when she sees him, curled up like a pretzel on Buster’s bed, arms wrapped around his head. “Hey,” she says, bending over to unlace one boot, then the other, before she steps out of them. She lets her satchel drop on the floor next to her Doc’s and hurries over, perching on the bedframe. “I’ll… I’ll make you a sandwich later, okay?”  
Jamie pushes himself up on his elbow, his narrow eyes red and puffy, and just looks at her. Sandwiches are clearly the last thing on his mind. He draws the back of his other hand across his face, trailing snot. So Helen stretches out next to him on top of the quilt, pulls him close and hugs him to her chest, the skinny little thing. She’s crying too, now, but her foster-brother’s presence is somehow calming – she could almost fall asleep like this, Helen thinks disjointedly. It’s like holding a warm, living little teddy-bear. 

“I’ve got a plan,” Richards says, as he pulls out of the Robinsons’ driveway. His hat lies on her side of the dashboard, but he’s wearing the scarf she knitted, like he always does, and it really matches his blue eyes perfectly. “It’s a little bit crazy, but… But just hear me out, okay?”  
“Okay,” Helen replies, reaching over to button her coat up over that tie-dyed sweatshirt she made as an art project at her last school. It didn’t exactly turn out great – one shoulder is completely purple, though she did manage a sort of mint-green starburst in the middle chest area, with a smaller sprinkling of red spread out inside _that_. Still, Helen likes it better than that stupid gym uniform sweater, _and_ the sleeves are nice and long. Richard may have turned the heating up as high as it will go, but the Oldsmobile is still freezing. His gaze seems to follow her movements for a second, and he frowns.  
“You changed your outfit?”  
“Yeah,” Helen does her best to laugh, “Jamie cried, and got snot all over that shirt you gave me. It’s soaking in a bucket right now.”  
Richard is quiet for a moment. “Is he okay?”  
“Jamie’s _great,_ ” Helen snaps, a little too forcefully. “His foster-mom actually loves _him,_ and his crazy real mom isn’t allowed to go anywhere _near_ him or Buster, _and_ he’s been approved for an assistant in school! Jamie’s barely seven, and he’s even creating a job!” Oh crap, she’s just realized how shrill her voice is. Her body’s true form is emptiness, and that means Gregory touched exactly _nothing_. Emptiness is no different from form, so it shouldn’t _matter_ that it feels like his fingerprints are burned into her skin now, along with all her _other_ stupid scars.  
“Helen,” Richard says cautiously, “Are you okay?”  
No. Of course she isn’t. “Sure,” she replies brightly. “Sorry about that! So, what’s your plan?”  
“Oh! Right, uh…” Richard takes them through the residential neighbourhood at a steady clip, probably just skirting the speed-limit. The snow that felt so magical in December has now turned brown and soggy, the way literally _everything_ seems to do in January. “I went to City Hall,” he says, after driving a few blocks in silence. “Just to… ask them a few things. Have you thought about what you want to do, after you turn eighteen?”  
The question is so odd that Helen blinks, wondering what sort of answer he’s expecting. “Finish high school,” she says at last, “I guess? It’s only next month. They’ll keep me in foster-care at _least_ until I graduate, so…”  
“What if I told you there’s another way?” Richard’s voice still sounds deceptively normal, but Helen can’t help but notice how his hands tighten on the steering wheel. They’ve gone through suburbia now and come out on the other side, where the abandoned old drive-in cinema is. The ancient canvas screen has long since been destroyed, but the frame still sits there, an empty square framing the freeway, and the forest behind it. The field in front of it, once packed full of cars, with popcorn sellers walking up between them, is completely empty, too. Richard drives them past the crumbling ticket booth, and parks the Oldsmobile right on the edge of the field. “I used to drive here all the time,” he says, as he pulls the parking break. “To practice, with Mom.”  
“Oh,” Helen hears herself say, “That’s nice.” Her own mother had done… other things.  
“Here.” Richard pulls a small, dark red box out of his coat pocket, and tosses it in her lap. “Those were my grandparents’. On my mom's side,” he goes on, as Helen cracks the box open. In the Oldsmobile’s flickering ceiling light, she sees two thin, gold wedding bands – one huge, one tiny. “My grandma had the world’s smallest hands, so hers probably won’t fit you, but I figure we can use part of my grandpa’s to enlarge it? I tried it on, and it’s so big, it even fell off my _thumb._ ”  
Helen can feel her mouth slip open. “You,” she swallows, “You can’t be serious.”  
“I’m totally serious!” He looks and sounds so boyishly affronted that it’s almost funny. “If you marry me; that counts as emancipating yourself from the whole stupid foster system, _and_ from that asshole they placed you with! And then you can live with _us_ instead! My parents totally like you. So let’s get married, Helen!”  
It’s the loveliest dream, but that’s all it can ever be. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Helen says, her voice trembling as she firmly snaps the box closed. “Richie, you’re only eighteen,” she goes on, her resolve faltering a little when she sees the hurt on his face. “The last thing you want to do is, is tie yourself down to someone like me.”  
“But…” Those blue eyes drill into hers, until Helen has to look down at her hands, still clenched around that red box. “But I _love_ you,” Richard says, and he sounds like he’s about to cry. “Can’t you _tell?_ ”  
Of course she can. Ever since that night when he played the guitar outside her window, Helen has felt so cosy and protected and _wrapped up_ in his love, but that’s exactly _why_ she can’t accept this. Someone like him… he deserves so much more.  
“Richie,” she says, and her voice breaks on his pet-name, “You don’t understand. I’m not _normal_.”  
“Then _help_ me understand,” he says fiercely, almost angrily. “Don’t shut me out, like you always do!”  
That hurts, because Helen knows he’s right. Every time she is reminded of… of _things,_ she will always freeze up. Devoting all the energy she has to suppressing the panic attack, so she won’t scare him into leaving her. “Okay,” she says, as she starts to unbutton her coat. She does owe him an explanation, if nothing else.  
Helen quickly shrugs her coat off – at least the arthritic heating system in this car is finally _doing_ something – before she pulls her multi-coloured sweatshirt over her head. Underneath that, she’s only wearing a tank top, so now the red welts that run all the way from her wrists and up past her elbows are on full display. “See how ugly I really am?”  
Richard makes a choking sound, clapping his hand over his mouth like he’s about to throw up. “Who,” he says, and his hand is shaking like crazy when he lowers it, “Who did that to you?”  
“My real mom,” Helen tells him, as matter-of-factly as she can. “She used to put her cigarettes out on my arms when I was little. I’m not sure why. Sometimes she got angry with me, and sometimes,” she shrugs, “She just got angry.” The cold is starting to get to her now, heating or no heating, but Helen knows she needs to leave her sweater off. To show him; to _force_ him to understand. “When Gregory felt me up today, he made sure to light a cigarette just before. He knows how nervous they make me. So I just stood there, and I _let_ him…” She has to stop talking for a second. Centre herself; and think, emptiness. Nothing but emptiness. “My real dad just beat me, and that was almost better, you know? Except when he’d hold my head under water, to get the swelling in my face down, because I couldn’t show up to school looking all bruised. I always used to think I was gonna die, when he did that. It was kind of a relief when he took off. Even if that did make my mom a lot angrier.”  
A cold gust of wind and a slam tell her Richard’s climbed out of the car. Helen risks looking out the window on the driver’s side, and sees him standing there with his hands over his eyes, head tilted towards the sky. “GODDAMN IT,” he screams, and a whole flock of crows rises from the tree-tops above him, cackling indignantly as they fly away.  
Helen tries to pull the sweatshirt back over her head, but her arms are shaking too hard. At least there’s no point, anymore, in trying to hold her own tears back. It’s over. It was so wonderful while it lasted, but it’s all over now, and she doubles over with the pain of it, clutching her belly and howling.  
Suddenly, the door on her side is ripped open. Cold stings her bare, scarred arms, and she looks up to find Richard kneeling in the snow in front of her. He catches her smaller hands between his big, frozen red hands. “Helen,” he says, and he’s crying too, his handsome face all twisted and puffy. “It _kills_ me that they did that stuff to you, but if you think that makes me love you any _less…_ ” He shakes his head and noisily snorts his snot back up his nose. “Helen,” Richard says again. “All I have to offer you is a really narrow bed, and a ring that won’t even _fit_. But I still want you to marry me. More than _ever_. Please?”  
How is she supposed to resist this guy? You’d need to be an actual bodhisattva, and meditate on glowing coals for ten hours a day, to be able to resist _this_. Helen closes her eyes and leans forward, her forehead butting against his. “Okay,” she whispers. “Yes.”

After Helen’s pulled her clothes back on, they walk all the way up to the empty drive-in screen, holding hands inside Richard’s coat pocket. The only footprints in the snow are theirs. There is this budding understanding between them now, after she’s told him everything, this openness that’s somehow relaxing and terrifying at the same time. She leans into him, and he tips her bowler hat back with his free hand, so he can kiss just the tip of her nose.  
Helen can’t help but laugh, just a little. “You know what Buster said to me the other day? He said that if I’d dated anybody else, he wouldn’t like it.”  
“Buster has good taste,” Richard drawls, and this time, he kisses her on the lips.


	7. February: I'm not sarcastic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've reached the final "proper" chapter of this little fic, and I hope you'll enjoy it. But there _will_ be an epilogue later, featuring Baby Tweek, so do stick around for that! 
> 
> When Richard thinks about reforging the shards of Narsil, he's thinking about the part in Lord of the Rings where the pieces of the blade that sliced the One Ring from the dark lord Sauron's hand are melted down and made into a sword for Aragorn, who is technically the hero of the book. Well, one of them, anyway. You know, just in case you haven't twigged what an enormous nerd he is yet.
> 
> Also, I didn't spell it out in this chapter, but Helen's birthday is on February 11th, so she and Richard get married on Valentine's Day. Since Saint Valentine was a monk who used to marry lovers who eloped, it seemed appropriate.

“Helen,” Richard says, “Come on. Who gets _married_ in a Karate Kid T-shirt?”  
“Karate Kid _Two,_ ” Helen corrects him, pursing her lips a little and tilting her chin. She’s wearing the shirt in question right now; with a black long-sleeved shirt underneath it, and that enormous cardigan she’s named The Largest Sweater of Life on top. If they’ve ever _had_ colder Februaries around these parts, Richard isn’t old enough to remember them. “It’s got sentimental value, okay? _And_ it’s white!”  
They’re sitting in Richard’s room; Helen perched on the bedframe while he’s turned the desk-chair backwards so he’ll have something to rest his arms on. Martin’s there too, sitting cross-legged on the floor, cautiously petting that semi-feral stripy cat he found behind the trash cans outside Tweak Bros. They’re technically not allowed to bring animals inside the house, but that’s something the brothers have had a _lot_ of practice working around. It just meant that Richard – who’s taller – had to stand outside the laundry room and pass the cat to Martin through the open window, while it sank every last claw through his mittens and also peed down his sleeve. If you’re planning to secretly marry your girlfriend, it only makes _sense_ to get your siblings involved – _especially_ when one of them already owes you a favour.  
“ _Mostly_ white,” Martin points out – like he’d really rather not argue with Helen, only honesty demands he tell the truth. “ _And_ there’s a burn mark. Maybe you haven’t seen it? It’s kind of on the side…” When he raises one hand to point, the cat makes a sound that’s half pleading, half menacing, and probably translates to, _how dare you stop petting me._  
On the floor in front of Martin is where the phone sits – not a dial-phone, but a square red _key-phone_ with black numbered buttons and a sticker with “Manufactured in 1983” taped to the bottom. The fact that this thing still _works_ should be enough to make you believe in miracles. They’ve pulled it in here, all the way from the hallway, careful not to squish the cable in the door. So when Simon calls, they’ll be able to pounce on it after just one ring – _half_ a ring, if they’re fast.  
“That was there when I got the shirt.” Helen folds her hands between her knees, and her shoulders sort of tip inwards. “When I was ten. It was so big on me then, like a dress.”  
Richard gets up, and quickly crosses the rug to sit next to her. Slips one hand under her cardigan and onto the small of her back, and gently rubs it in circles.  
“Ugh, it’s no big deal,” Helen mutters, but she still leans her head into his shoulder. “My elementary school teacher, Mr Carter? He was the only one who noticed that I had… stuff going on at home, and he let me stay at his house. That’d never fly these days,” she adds, with a sad little laugh. “They actually offered to foster me, you know. Him and his boyfriend. But _because_ there was a boyfriend, and not a wife, my shiny new social worker decided that wouldn’t be “the right kind of environment” for a kid. Anyway…” Helen sighs, and fingers the hem of the T-shirt, “This was my nightie when I stayed there.”  
“Ah, so that’s why you love that thing,” Richard says, as casually as he can. He gets it now; he just doesn’t want her wearing it to their wedding. “Still, if they’d let you stay with that nice, _non-crazy_ couple you’d have grown up all happy, and you’d _never_ have wound up here. And then _we’d_ never have met – right?” He’s joking, of course, but it falls as flat as a wet fart.  
“Um,” Martin says, holding out his writhing and hissing new best friend, “You can have my cat if you like, Helen?”  
That, finally, pulls a giggle from Helen’s lips. “It think it likes you better,” she says, which is the understatement of the _year_ – the little monster is now wrapping all four limbs around Martin’s right arm, in an effort to stay put. “Did you guys come up with a name for it yet?”  
“Rat Bastard,” Richard immediately says, and he’s gratified when Helen throws her head back and laughs _properly_.  
“It’s _female,_ ” Martin snaps, before he goes back to cuddling the beast like it’s a baby. “And no. I’m still accepting _serious_ suggestions.”  
The past few weeks have been spent planning this wedding – like Frank Sinatra and the others planning their big heist in Ocean’s Eleven. Helen’s birthday was two days ago, which was when they’d handed over their petition to be married at City Hall – with the phone number of Simon’s dorm, instead of the one for here. That had been a smart move; turns out they really do call you back about stuff. The ceremony’s set for tomorrow at eleven-thirty on the dot; and they’ve planned it all so carefully. Like how Helen’s already stashed most of her clothes here, in the cardboard boxes under Richard’s bed. She’s filled her own drawers with piles of folded-up towels, with one single piece of clothing on top – just in case her foster mom decides to check her stuff. The six CD’s she owns are all at Tweak Bros, and her books have now been stuffed in between and on top of Richard’s, in his already bulging book-case. Looking at it makes him kind of happy, though, seeing her mis-matched Earthsea books (four books, four different editions) next to his tattered, sagging Lord of the Rings omnibus and embarrassingly pristine Silmarillion.  
It’s not like they haven’t _thought_ of getting a wedding dress, they just haven’t been able to _find_ one at any of the thrift stores in the area. Even though they’ve spent the past three Saturdays driving round the neighbouring towns and checking _all_ the thrift stores in an ever-expanding, desperate radius. And they’re getting married _tomorrow_. So in a way, it’s fair enough that Helen wants to improvise. It just… It wouldn’t feel _right._  
The phone rings, and Martin dives for the receiver. “Simon, hey – aw, Mom! Can’t _I_ talk to Simon first? Please, Mom?”  
On the other end, Mom sighs. “All right. Simon – it’s the same phone booth as always, right? When you boys are done, I’ll call you back.”  
There must be something about being the youngest; or maybe Martin really just _is_ way more loveable. But even _Mom_ will do what Martin wants, if he only asks sweetly enough. Richard and Helen both join him on the floor, leaning in close so they can hear Simon, too. As soon as they hear the click of Mom putting the receiver down, Simon says, “I found a dress at Goodwill.”  
The three of them erupt in cheers. “How much do we owe you,” Richard asks, dreading the answer. Helen looks up from the cat, which has been sniffing her fingertips, and taps her own chest meaningfully. It’s sweet that she wants to pay for her own dress, but she barely has enough loose change in her purse to pay for a bus ride! So Richard’s been doing his best to just sort of silently pay for all the wedding stuff when Helen’s not looking, because at least _he_ gets a normal allowance from doing chores and working at the store. The marriage licence and the wedding certificate; it all adds up, but the wedding bands have been the biggest cost by far. Both the sizes were so off that the goldsmith advised them to just melt the gold down and have new rings made from scratch – and in a way, that had seemed really appropriate; like something his dead grandparents might have approved of. The gold being merged and re-forged had also reminded Richard of how the shards of Narsil were re-forged into Anduril. It hadn’t been cheap, though.  
“It was only twenty bucks! There’s a wine-stain on it, so I haggled it down. It can be my wedding present,” Simon adds, and Richard can just picture him now, leaning against the side of a petrol station with his trademark sly grin on his face.  
“Thanks,” Richard says, light-headed with relief. He doesn’t even need to feel guilty about it, if the dress was only twenty dollars! “I owe you one.”  
“I _love_ you!” Helen is leaning over the receiver to make kissy sounds while she pets the cat. “Though _obviously_ not as much as Richie,” she adds, winking up at him. “How bad’s the stain?” The cat is now to allowing her to rub the underside of its pointy little chin, eyes closing to slits. That chainsaw sound coming out from behind its snaggled teeth might just be purring, too.  
“Not too bad; I soaked it in bleach last night – but it’ll be too big for sure. Just… go buy some safety pins, or something?” In the background, you can hear a car horn honking. “Aw shit, that’s my ride. I gotta go! Oh, and don’t let Mom call me back,” Simon goes on, “I mean, I’m at a truck stop just outside Longmont, so that’d kind of blow my cover, right?”  
“Right,” Helen says, laughing quietly. The cat has now advanced to placing one paw on her wrist, like it’s telling her to keep up the good work and stay put. Like it just can’t help but love her – Richard knows the feeling.  
“See you all tomorrow!” With that, Simon hangs up, and Richard climbs to his feet, picking the phone up off the floor. Might as well go put it back, since his brother won’t be calling again tonight. Simon is hitching a ride as far as Lafayette with a truck driver, and they’re expected to get there sometime in the early morning – not bad, for a free trip. After that, he’ll get the bus to the depot in town, where Richard and Martin should be waiting in the Greenmobile, instead of going to school.  
In the hallway, he bumps into Dad, who’s coming out of the bathroom. “You should drive her home,” Dad says, scratching absently under the pony-tail at the nape of his neck. “It’s a school night, after all.” Richard has only ever seen Dad with short hair in old photos – that ponytail used to be intensely blond, but now, it’s increasingly speckled with silver.  
A click makes them both look around; Helen is standing outside Richard’s room, her purple satchel dangling from one shoulder. She’s just pulled the door shut behind her, to make sure Dad doesn’t see Martin with that cat. “You read my mind, Mr Tweak,” she says, and runs over on her stockinged feet to give Dad a quick peck on the cheek, “Thanks for having me!” What must be going through her mind right now; Richard wonders. You wouldn’t think she was nervous at all, though Helen’s biggest worry about getting married has _always_ been his parents. What they’ll say, how mad they’ll get (them _not_ getting mad isn’t an option as far as Helen is concerned). Whether they’ll blame _her_ for the whole thing.  
Dad grunts and starts down the stairs, but just as Helen’s about to follow him, she stops dead. Rummages around in her bag for a second, before she pulls out that book of Buddhist sutras she always carries around. The one she says she stole from the public library in Alamosa because, as she’d put it, “At the time, it wasn’t a book I could live without”. “Here,” Helen says, and it’s not just her voice that’s shaking; little tremors are travelling from her hands and all the way up her arms. “Why don’t you hold onto this for me? It seems… silly,” Helen goes on, when Richard’s jaw drops, “To take it back with me, when… And I’d really like you to read it,” she adds, with that hopeful little smile he can _never_ resist. “Maybe this could be… something _else_ for us to have in common?”  
“All right.” Richard takes the book from her, and on an impulse, opens it to smell it. It has that pleasant, dry old book smell he loves. He knows very well what a huge deal this is, what a boundless declaration of trust. “Thank you.”

He can’t sleep. Which is just _perfect,_ isn’t it. Richard turns on his bedside light, before he rubs his eyes. Will they even be able to sleep on this bed, the two of them, he wonders hazily. Maybe he’ll have to give Helen the bed, and drag one of the mattresses from the guest bedroom in here for himself. What a great start to their married life _that’ll_ be.  
Suddenly, he hears it. A soft, guttural whine. You’d almost think it came from a baby, except the only baby that’d make this kind of noise would be the Antichrist. Well. If he believed in such things – Richard’s parents have raised him to very sensibly believe in nothing at all.  
“Stupid cat,” he mutters, as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed. His toes dig into the carpet as he hurries across the room, and sneaks out into the hallway. When he opens Martin’s door, that damn cat slips out immediately, and starts weaving between his legs. It’s purring, too, in a very transparent attempt at sucking up to him. Martin even snuck down that half-empty sack of aquarium sand from the attic to set up a litter-box for it, and Richard _saw_ it squatting in there earlier, scowling at him while it was taking a shit. This thing _knows_ it doesn’t need to go outside to relieve itself. So his best guess is that Martin’s sound asleep, and the cat must just be bored. Sure enough, when he hurries back to his own room and holds the door open, the cat runs right inside. Richard sighs, and follows it, closing the door as quietly as he can.  
The cat’s walking around the room, sniffing things – maybe it was hoping Helen would be in here? Eventually, it seems to give up, and hops up onto the foot end of his bed. “If you pee on my sheets, I’ll toss you out the window,” Richard threatens quietly, as he lifts a corner of the duvet to climb back inside. Just then, he remembers the book Helen pressed on him – he’d just dropped it in the middle of his desk, since he’d been in such a rush to go fire the Greenmobile up. The Heart Sutra and Other Sutras, huh? He slides the book off the desk, before he gets back into bed. The cat starts walking in a little circle – Richard knows that’s their instinct, from living in the wild. That all cats and dogs do this, because deep in their bones, there’s a genetic memory of flattening the grass before they can go to sleep on it. The cat doesn’t keep this up for long, though, before dropping down right next to his left knee, and pressing its little body against his leg. In spite of how this thing clawed him and peed on him just a few hours ago, Richard can’t help but feel a _little_ bit sorry for it – well, _her_. She must’ve lived with people at some point, judging by the way she immediately took to being in a house and using a litter-box. People who just toss out pets they get sick of should be _shot,_ Richard thinks, as he cracks the book open and begins to read. Allows the words to sink into him, like stones skimmed into a pond. It’s so weirdly calming – he can see how Helen’s come to rely on this, and a part of him wonders if she’ll even be able to go to sleep without it.  
As he reads, it’s like Richard’s mind divides itself, temporarily, into two halves – one just reading, experiencing, and the other analysing, evaluating. The book keeps skipping between the translated sutras, which read like a cross between abstract poetry and a self-help book, and texts by various scholars that examine and discuss different aspects of Buddhism. On a normal night, this might even have been the perfect book to put himself to sleep with, but Richard’s getting married tomorrow, and he doesn’t exactly have nerves of steel. More like… nerves of spaghetti. And so he’s starting to find this book… strangely reassuring. _When a Bodhisattva depends on the one true path,_ he reads. _His mind can conjure no more obstacles, and without obstacles, no fear exits. Far apart from the trappings of the world, he then dwells in Nirvana._  
Richard can feel the tension in his shoulders start to loosen up. Political opinions are one thing, but it’s not like Mom and Dad have ever treated Marxism as a religion, the way people might do somewhere like North Korea or Russia. Richard and his brothers have always been encouraged to question it, to discuss, to make up their own minds. And it hits him how, since his parents raised him, raised them all, with no faith whatsoever, then maybe everything he’s been doing up until now has been some sort of search, for something to believe in. If he’s some kind of… empty vessel, then at least _he_ gets to decide what to fill himself up with. What, if anything, to believe in. Richard quickly takes stock, and decides that he believes in love now, cheesy as that may be. That he believes in doing what he knows, deep down, is the right thing to do. And he believes…  
The cat makes a sound, pulling him out of his thoughts. There it is again, a very quiet, sort of plaintive yowl. The cat’s standing up now, and while he’s looking at her, she puts both her front paws on his chest. Shaking his head, Richard puts the book down and carefully slips his hand over her head, flattening her pointy ears, while her little skull vibrates with purring under his palm. Huh, so they’re suddenly friends now? While he’s carefully scratching behind her ears, the cat tenses and jumps, right up on his chest. Then she lies down again, hooking her claws through his pyjama shirt, like she’s daring him to try and lift her off.  
“I will be _pissed_ if you pee on me,” Richard whispers, and has to choke down his laughter when he realizes how stupid that sounds. He makes sure to put Helen’s book safely away on his nightstand, balanced on his hardback copy of Asimov’s Foundation and Empire. Dad can’t stand Asimov for some reason, so any of his books that find their way into this house do so via either Richard’s library card or Richard’s allowance – and he scored this one for just three dollars because the dust-jacket had been ripped. He’s read it before, but he wants to own the whole Foundation series so he can re-read it whenever he wants, in one great big chunk. _And_ he wants to persuade Helen to read them, she’s already listened to the whole of Hitchhiker’s Guide, so there is _some_ hope… “Maybe we can call you Bayta,” he tells the cat, while he strokes her down the length of her back, as a name from that novel pops into his head. “She’s a pretty cool character. Or Arkady, maybe. She was probably my fav-” Richard surprises himself by yawning. So, he’s finally tired, but can he actually _sleep?_ He reaches out to switch the bedside lamp off, and now the only thing glowing in the dark at the cat’s eyes. They’re a bright yellow green, like new leaves growing on a branch. Without obstacles, no fears exits, Richard thinks as his eyes slip shut. 

Helen knows to be downstairs by the phone for eight – and right on time, it starts to ring. She lets it ring twice before she picks it up, which is perfectly safe because everyone else is still in the kitchen.  
“Hello,” she says, breathlessly.  
“Hey, Helen.” It’s Richard, of course – she knew it would be. “I’m really sorry, but I’ve come down with something,” he’s saying, according to the script they came up with. “Martin’s got it too. So I can’t come pick you up for school.”  
Helen sighs. It’s all gone according to plan until now – and here she is, about to throw a spanner in the plan. In the works. Whatever. She _has_ to.  
“Listen,” she says, “There’s something I need to do first. Could you pick me up at…” she cranes her neck so she can look into the kitchen, where everybody seems to be too busy eating to wonder who she’s talking to. “Downtown,” Helen whispers, “At the police station?”  
“When,” Richard whispers back, and he sounds like a frightened child all of a sudden.  
“No later than ten,” Helen tells him. “I’ll try to make it quick.” All the public buildings are Downtown, so it’s not like they’ll need an hour and a half to get to City Hall from there. It’s not like she’s putting the plan in _jeopardy_. Helen’s _got_ this. So why is her heart pounding so hard?  
“Okay,” Richard says, and his voice is guarded. “I can do that.” For all she knows, his mother is standing over him, making sure he delivers the message properly. “Thanks,” he adds, as if Helen’s just told him to get well soon, and then he hangs up.  
Helen just stands there for a second, with the receiver still pressed against her ear, absently listening to the beeps. She closes her eyes. Draws a deep breath, holds it in her stomach for a second, and breathes back out. Then she puts the receiver back down into the cradle. Right.  
She runs upstairs, already with her boots on. At Richard’s house, you take your shoes off as soon as you come inside. But here, you just wear your shoes until you feel like taking them off. Richard would probably have raised an eyebrow and said it was barbaric, if her foster parents had ever allowed him to come for a visit. Once inside her room, Helen looks around, just to make extra sure she hasn’t missed anything. It’s crazy, how much stuff you gather without even realizing, she thinks, sinking down on the bed. She made it as well as she could, so it’ll at least look tidy in here after she’s left.  
One advantage to being in foster care is that at least she’s got all her documents in order, because she _has_ to – her birth certificate, a copy of the court order removing her from her mother’s care, everything she needs to prove that she is who she says she is. Everything she needs to get married. Her Walkman goes in the satchel too, with the headphones dangling out and draped around the front end of the shoulder-strap. Just as well that she left her book with Richard last night. All her textbooks and notebooks are in her locker at school, stacked in a great big wobbly tower. But there were things she couldn’t take out of the house without arousing suspicion. Like her shampoo and conditioner, which she has no intention of leaving for Lorraine, or her modest collection of makeup. Or any of the other stuff Helen keeps in the bathroom, like her spare packets of Dylon. Those go into the blue plastic tub she uses to dye clothes in, since she’s never lived _anywhere_ people were cool with her just doing that in their washing machine. That tub cost her five dollars, but it was a good investment – the plastic is so soft and thin that she can just fold it up and tuck it under her arm, and it’s nice and big, so everything fits in there. Helen’s last few bits of clothing have been crammed in around her toiletries and clothes-dye; dirties on one side, clean on the other. She’s been awake since six am, so she’s had plenty of time to pack and plan.  
She stands up, and crosses the floor to pick up the stuffed toy that always sits on her desk; the mint-green Care Bear that Mr Carter bought her at the mall, after he told her she wouldn’t have to go back home. He’d bought her a toothbrush at the grocery store first, along with a pink plastic hairbrush, before leading her into the toy store. “Every little girl needs a teddy-bear to cuddle at night,” he’d said, before he told her she could pick a bear in whatever colour she wanted. It had been years since Helen had owned a teddy-bear, let alone slept with one. But suddenly, there had been nothing in the world she’d wanted more than one of those perfect, smiling bears. So Helen had picked the mint-green bear, the one with the pretty eyelashes, the heart-shaped nose and the shooting star on her tummy. The one called Wish Bear; Helen had never watched the cartoon but it said so on the box. And Mr Carter had paid for it, without even raising an eyebrow at the price.  
Helen hugs the bear to her chest, just for a second. Then she wraps it in the Safeway bag she got from the kitchen this morning while everyone else was still asleep, and puts it on top of her toiletries. Pulls The Largest Sweater of Life off the desk chair where she hung it last night, and drapes it over the tub, stuffing the sleeves inside and hiding everything from sight.  
Helen stops in the doorway for a second, with the tub tucked under her arm. The room now looks exactly the way it was when she moved in here, six months ago. Except for a lone, unused bottle of hairspray sitting on the desk – Helen won’t need that where she’s going.  
“What’s in the basket,” Gregory asks her, just as she’s about to slip out of the house for good. It’s like a scene straight out of Little Red Ridinghood – and no prizes for guessing who the wolf is.  
“My art project,” Helen lies smoothly, reaching up with her free hand to adjust her bowler hat. She needs to get out of here before he can ask why there’s no green Oldsmobile waiting to pick her up. “Buster, Jamie, come on!” Her next mission is to put them on the bus before they can start wondering where Richard is – and if they do, she’ll have to lie and say he’s just running late. Even though she hates lying. But what the boys don’t know, they can’t get in trouble for.  
Helen walks out of the house without looking back. Down the driveway; with the two boys running in front of her and her heart in her throat. Half expecting Lorraine or Gregory to shout her name, demand to see what’s in the basin, to know why she’s cleared her room out. But she’s probably lucky, since neither of them has ever cared enough to check up on her that closely. So nobody calls out her name, and nobody suspects a thing. 

Sitting on the front steps of the police station with her blue plastic tub right next to her, Helen spots the Oldsmobile straightaway. Richard’s driving, and Simon’s claimed the shotgun seat, which he’s pushed all the way back to make space for his long legs – maybe he even tried to take a nap on the way here; he probably hasn’t had that much sleep. Martin’s sitting behind Richard, and Helen’s not all that surprised to see the cat in his lap – they probably decided it was safer to bring it along than leave it in the house all day. But she _is_ surprised to see Orville strapped in behind Simon.  
When Richard pulls up next to the curb, she runs down the steps and dives into the back seat, blue tub and all, while Martin obligingly scoots over to the middle seat. “Orville,” she says, reaching past Martin and the cat to muss his hair, “What’re _you_ doing here?”  
“As _if_ I’d miss your wedding,” Orville tells her reproachfully. “Richard tried giving me your letter for Buster,” he adds, “So then I made him tell me. And you can’t stop me from coming. Even if it _is_ my first time ever skipping school.”  
“I see.” The cat is sliding out from under Martin’s arm, eager to inspect the contents of the blue tub, which Helen’s had to squeeze between her legs. At least Richard’s left his seat in a sensible position, there’s more than enough space for her behind him. “Thanks, Orville,” she says, surprised by how happy this makes her. “I’m flattered!”  
“So what was that about,” Richard asks from the front, his voice carefully even, his eyes fixed on the road.  
“Oh, I was just getting you a wedding present,” Helen replies, smiling sweetly into the rear-view mirror. “It’s a surprise.” 

They spend the short drive to the City Hall debating what to name the cat; the three brothers have agreed she should be named after a science fiction or fantasy-character, but _which_ character is still up for grabs. Martin has firmly rejected Richard’s first two suggestions, because Beyta sounds too much like Betamax and Arkady was too masculine; so Richard’s campaigning for Trillian now. Meanwhile Simon, the original Tolkien nerd, wants to name it Arwen. And Martin is all for calling it Diana, after Wonder Woman, which the other two think is _way_ too boring. Orville has wisely refrained from voting, so now they turn to Helen, expecting her to pick the best name out of those three.  
“What about Tenar,” Helen suggests, since that’s her favourite character in all the Earthsea books, just as they pull up outside City Hall. “That’ll give her a nice name to grow into.”  
“Huh,” Martin says, lifting the cat off Helen’s lap so she can get out, “That’s not bad, actually.”  
All three Tweak brothers are wearing matching black suits and white shirts, and in spite of Martin still being shorter, and Simon still having dreadlocks, they’ve never looked more alike to her. “Which one of you am I marrying again,” Helen jokes weakly, as she climbs out of the Oldsmobile. Her legs are trembling; this is all suddenly so _real._  
“The best one, clearly,” Richard answers, as he slams the car door shut and locks it. Helen can’t help but notice that his hands are shaking.  
“Here.” She pulls the crumpled envelope out of her satchel, “Your wedding present.”  
Richard takes it, and pulls the pages out, frowning. “But I didn’t get you…” he begins; then stops talking as his eyes scan the front page.  
“What is it,” Martin asks, craning his neck to see. Behind him, the cat has settled down on top of Helen’s blue tub; the cardigan and her spare clothes seem to make the perfect little bed.  
“It’s a police report,” Richard says distractedly, still reading. “A _copy_ of a police report. She’s pressing charges against the bastard.” He finally lowers the pages, and looks right at her, shaking his head. “Damn, Helen. I’m so proud of you.”  
She can’t help but squeal and throw herself into his arms, and Richard tucks her head under his chin and hugs her tight, until Simon clears his throat.  
“Hey,” he says, “Not to ruin the moment or anything? But maybe you should find somewhere to try this dress on.” Helen looks up just in time to catch the plastic bag he’s thrown at her. When she peers inside, all she sees is snow white lace, and her stomach does a little leap. This is really happening. “The stain was on chest part,” Simon goes on, pulling a brush out of one pocket “So that’s the only part I bleached, and I washed it in the sink afterwards, too. So you shouldn’t get a rash or anything. Now you come here,” he goes on, waving Martin over.  
“Thank you,” Helen whispers, but Simon seems too busy brushing the cat hair off his little brother’s suit to have even heard her.  
“Hey,” Orville says, holding his hand out – just like Helen did, the first time they met. Her fingers close around his hand, which is actually clean for once. No paint, no dirt, no glue or candy residue. “Come on, Helen!”  
She slides the plastic bag’s handle over her wrist so Richard can take her other hand, and then the three of them run up the steps to City Hall, the whole Vegetarian Club, together. 

After the ceremony, which was surprisingly quick considering they just swore to spend the rest of their lives together – filling in the forms beforehand actually took longer! – the five of them have their wedding banquet. At Wendy’s. Richard gets the plain Poutine, Helen gets a baked potato with sour cream and chives, and they share a garden side salad. Since Simon was the best man, he gives a little speech, and afterwards they all raise their paper cups of cola and coffee, chocolate milk and tropical berry lemonade in a toast. The staff are staring at them – at Helen in her wedding dress with Richard’s suit jacket worn on top, both to hide her bare arms and the safety pins that run all the way down her back, keeping her too-big dress in place. At Richard with his black tie tossed over one shoulder and his shirtsleeves rolled up, eating and drinking with his right hand while his left arm is wrapped firmly around Helen’s waist. They keep looking at each other and grinning, like neither of them can quite believe they got away with it.  
“Want us to drop you off at school, or at home,” Simon asks Orville.  
“At school, I guess,” Orville sighs. “I’ll probably get detention. But this was _totally_ worth it,” he adds, with his usual serious face on. “And then I’ll give Buster your letter, Helen. I’m not there to keep him out of trouble, so he’s probably got detention already.”  
“Orville,” Richard says, putting his paper cup of filtered coffee down and staring at the boy in mock horror, “Did you just crack a joke?”  
“It’s your own fault if you didn’t get it,” Orville replies, deadpan as always. But if you look _very_ carefully, you can see that he’s smiling. 

Tweak Bros shuts at nine on a Friday night, so the four of them turn up at the coffee store at a quarter to, to face the music. Just like Richard had hoped, there are witnesses; two unknowns and three of their regulars. He _wants_ people to spread some gossip, so his parents will have even less leverage when they start pressuring him to have this marriage annulled.  
Helen’s given him his suit jacket back now, in favour of The Largest Sweater of Life, but she’s still wearing the dress underneath it. And she looks absolutely beautiful – terrified, but beautiful.  
There’s a whole disposable camera in the glove compartment full of their wedding photos, on top of their wedding certificate in its plastic folder, and Helen’s police report. They drove out to the old drive-in cinema to take those, and Martin and Simon had taken turns photographing them. It had turned into a bit of a contest to see which brother was the better photographer; though of course they won’t know for sure until they’ve had the film developed. At one point, when Martin lowered the camera and announced they had five pictures left, Helen had slipped Richard’s jacket off and tossed it to him, before she lay down in the snow, sliding her bare arms through it like she was putting on a coat. Yelling, “Hurry! I’m freezing!” while Richard had pulled the camera out of Martin’s hands and snapped a picture of her, and then another. He hopes they turn out good, those final five pictures of Helen cavorting in the snow. He hopes she looks like a snow-princess right out of a fairy-tale.  
“Hey,” he says, and slips his fingers through hers, “It’s going to be okay.” The weight of his re-forged wedding ring still feels weird and unfamiliar around his finger. Next to him, Helen is too nervous to speak – all she does is nod, and bite her lip. Together, they walk the short distance from the Greenmobile to the shop door, his brothers walking right behind them, and the bell on the door chimes merrily when Richard pushes it open.  
Dad, who’s getting ready to cash up, looks up from the open till, and his jaw literally drops. That look on his face would be funny, if Richard wasn’t secretly so scared. “Rose,” Dad says, and then Mom turns around, holding a drink she’s just made. The moment she spots them and works it all out, the cup just slips right out of her hand; and the sound of it smashing against the floor makes every single customer look up.  
“What have you done,” Mom says, and her voice may be drained of all emotion, but her eyes are wide and horrified.  
“We got married,” Richard says, and does his best to sound all casual and chill about it. Like getting married is an acceptable alternative to going to the library, or getting ice-cream.  
“Richard, Helen,” Dad says, and _his_ voice is flat and toneless with anger, “In the back room, now. And _you_ two,” he switches his glare over to Simon and Martin for a second, “Can close up, since you’re here. We’ll deal with you two _later._ ” With that, he turns on his heel and shoves the staff room door open, and there’s nothing for it but to follow him inside. Richard can’t even tell if it’s Helen’s hand, or his own, that’s shaking. 

“Look on the bright side,” Richard says, as slides the Oldsmobile behind his mother’s beat-up Jetta for the drive home. “At _least_ they’re not making us sleep in the car.” _He’d_ been the one to suggest that, of course, when his father had started asking him where he’d been planning to live, now that he seemed to consider himself an adult.  
Helen had been crying too much to really say anything, except, “I can work for you, I can work,” which she’d repeated over and over until Richard’s mother had come over and started wiping her tears with her apron.  
“It’s not that we don’t like you, Helen,” she’s said, “But you’re both so young!”  
“But we would’ve gotten married _anyway,_ ” Richard had countered. “I know that, okay?” It hadn’t exactly been a winning argument, but the deed was done, and what more could his parents say?  
So now they’re all driving home to have dinner, because what else can they do; they’re a family after all. And Helen’s the intruder, the cuccoo’s child, forcing her way in. She’s crying and she can’t stop, because she’s burned every bridge she has and there is nowhere else she can go. Richard’s doing his best to cheer her up, but it’s not like he can hug her or hold her hand, not while he’s driving. Martin’s in the back seat, no doubt trying to figure out how to smuggle the cat back inside. And Simon’s in the Jetta with both his parents – as the oldest, he seems to be just as deep in disgrace as Richard is, since they seem to think _he_ could have put a stop to the whole thing.  
After the Jetta’s been parked in the garage and the Oldsmobile in the driveway, Martin jumps out almost before Richard’s switched the engine off. He insists on carrying the blue tub upstairs, which makes it painfully obvious where he’s stashed the cat. Sure enough, when she looks over the back of her seat, Helen can see the pile of toiletries and Dylon boxes on the floor. She’d better pretend she hasn’t noticed, and leave those in the car for now.  
“What’s that,” Richard’s father asks, not that he even seems interested, when he spots Martin taking that tub inside.  
“It’s Helen’s dowry,” Richard drawls, insolently enough to distract his father completely while his brother gets the cat to safety. Helen waits next to Richard while he’s getting yelled at, staring at the ground while she clutches all their documents in her frozen hands. The wedding ring fit perfectly when Richard slipped it on her finger, but out here in the cold, it feels so loose that she’s afraid it’ll fall off and roll away, and be lost in the snow forever.  
“There’s a monthly sum,” she says, when Richard’s father seems to have stopped for breath, “That’s supposed to cover my food and, and stuff. I’ll talk to Mrs Novotny on Monday. Get it transferred over to you and Mrs Tweak. It might take some time, but…” She starts crying again, eyes stinging from the melting mascara. “But I don’t want to, to take advantage…” It’s no use. Helen rubs her face against Richard’s arm, smearing his nice jacket with her cheap makeup. She hears her father in law draw a deep, resigned sigh.  
“Just come inside,” Mr Tweak says. “We can figure all that stuff out later.” 

They haven’t even finished eating dinner when a car horn rips through their stilted conversation. Helen stops trying to choke down her macaroni and cheese, and puts her fork on the placemat. “That’s probably them,” she says, although she _knows_ it is. Deep in her bones, she knows that, with or without his wife, Gregory has come to take her back.  
Richard pushes his chair back and stands up. “Helen,” he says, “Why don’t you go upstairs? I’ll talk to them.” Without waiting for an answer, he walks out into the hallway, and Helen can only stare after him in wonder. When did he get so tall? When did his back get so wide?  
It all comes down to her letter. Helen spent so much time writing and rewriting that letter that remembers it almost word for word. _Dear Buster and Jamie,_ she’d written. _I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you two in person, but I won’t be coming back to the house. Richard has asked me to marry him, and that’s what I’m going to do. I wish I didn’t have to leave you two behind, because I care about you both very much. But if I stay there, Gregory will do something to me that I’m not sure I could ever recover from. Buster, when you’ve read this to your brother, please show it to Lorraine to prove you didn’t know what I was up to._  
Orville promised to give Buster his letter, Helen thinks, while Richard’s mother pulls her upstairs. Saying something – asking a question? It’s not important, the words all blur together; she can’t hear them over her own frantic breathing. When Buster had read the letter, one of two things could have happened – he could have shown it to Lorraine, like she’d asked. Or, being Buster, he could have been furious at Helen’s betrayal, and just torn it up. How many people are in that car outside?  
From downstairs, she can hear angry male voices. Barking, like dogs, snapping and growling. Her head is spinning as Mrs Tweak pulls her into the bathroom, pushes on her shoulders until she sits down on the toilet seat. You don’t wear shoes in the Tweaks’ house, and Mrs Tweak is wearing sensible white socks that seem to glow against the navy blue floor tiles. Helen watches her rummage through the bathroom cabinet, before she shakes a toothbrush out of one of the plastic cups by the sink and fills the cup with water from the tap.  
“Here,” she says, uncurling Helen’s fingers to put a single pill on her palm, bright white, just like her socks. Luminous white, glowing like a piece of the moon itself. “Take this.”  
With jerky, robotic movements, Helen does as she’s told. The water tastes odd, metallic, and she can’t finish it after she’s taken the pill. Mrs Tweak doesn’t seem to mind, just pours it out for her before she squats in front of Helen, sliding two fingers up her sleeve to take her pulse. Then her eyes widen, and Helen instantly knows why; there’s a burn right on the inside of her left wrist. She doesn’t even have it in her to pull her arm away when Mrs Tweak starts to roll her sleeve up, and up, until she just plops down on her butt on the floor.  
“Helen,” Mrs Tweak says, and her voice is shaking, “Is _this_ why you don’t want to go back home?”  
She shakes her head. “But he knows,” she says, “He knows I’m scared of cigarettes. That’s why he always lights one, before he…”  
Richard’s mother has never hugged her before. She’s always struck Helen as someone who doesn’t _like_ hugging. “You don’t have to go back,” Mrs Tweak says fiercely, and when she stands up, she even brushes Helen’s bangs aside and plants a dry-lipped kiss on her forehead. “Now stay here.”  
It’s only after she’s heard Mrs Tweak’s quick, soft footsteps on the stairs – nobody wears shoes inside the Tweaks’ house – that Helen remembers the police report. 

“She’s only lying for attention,” Mrs Robinson is saying, arms folded firmly under her breasts. “They _told_ us about that, when we agreed to take her in!” Next to her, Mr Robinson is smoking a cigarette in quick, angry puffs, content to let his wife do the talking.  
Richard can see that they’ve brought along the two boys, too, all buckled up in the back seat. On the one hand, he supposes, it would be a bit late to leave them at home on their own. But on the other hand – shouldn’t they be in bed by now? When he last looked at the clock in the hallway, it was ten past ten.  
“Regardless of what you believe,” Dad responds, drawing himself up to his full height, “Helen is no longer your responsibility.”  
“So I’m afraid that’s the end of your monthly checks,” Richard adds, throwing those words in there just to see what sort of reaction it nets him. And man, was he right on the money or what – Mrs Robinson pulls her eyebrows together; and her thin lips flatten out into a tight, angry line.  
That’s when Mr Robinson drops his cigarette on their doormat, and grinds it in with the toe of his boot. “You’re wasting our time,” he says, and takes a step forward. “If she won’t come out, I’ll just have to go in and get her.”  
“Go on, shithead.” Simon pushes Richard aside and takes his place next to Dad, folding his arms. “Try it.”  
“Yeah,” Martin shouts over Dad’s shoulder, “Get lost!”  
That’s when Mom comes running down the stairs, and pushes her way between Dad and Simon. She draws her arm back, and the slap echoes like a gunshot down the empty street. “ _You,_ ” Mom says, while Mr Robinson raises a hand to his face, looking all confused, like he can’t believe what just happened.  
Richard is too distracted to realize Buster’s climbed out of the car until the boy shouts, “Helen! I know what rape is, okay?”  
“Hey, Gregory!”  
That’s Helen’s voice! When Richard pushes past his brother and cranes his neck, he can just about see her. Leaning out of the bay window in the upstairs hallway, waving a wad of papers that’s so white, the pages seems to glow in the light of the streetlamps.  
“You know what this means,” she shouts, while she keeps waving those papers like a flag. “This means I reported you ass! To the police! So I’ll see you in court, you evil bastard!” And then, because Helen is Helen, she blows a kiss with her other hand and shouts, “Hi Buster!”  
That look on Mr Robinson’s face. For some reason, it reminds Richard of Wil E. Coyote, when he realizes that what he _thought_ was the Roadrunner was actually a bunch of lit-up dynamite instead. It makes him wish that he’d left just _one_ blank picture on that disposable camera, so he could’ve snapped a photo of Mr Robinson standing there with his mouth open.  
Richard shoves his way back inside, takes the steps two at a time. By the time he’s grabbed Helen by the waist and pulled her away from the window, he’s so dizzy that he overbalances, and ends up flat on his back. But that’s okay. There’s carpet in the hallway, and Helen lets out a startled, squeaky cry as she lands on top of him. It’s the cutest thing, how can he _not_ roll her over and kiss her? “You,” he says, before he kisses her again, “Are the toughest girl,” another two kisses, “In the _world._ ” Then he flops over on his back, panting, while his hand fumbles for hers and closes around it.  
“Thanks to you, I am,” Helen says, as she weaves her fingers through his. 

Mrs Tweak insists on putting them in the guest bedroom, because that room has a double bed. “And Richard’s room is too small for you two,” she says, pulling the bed-cover back to reveal two single duvets with matching covers in some swirly black-and-white geometric pattern. Helen gets dizzy just looking at it, though that may also have something to do with that pill Mrs Tweak made her take. She feels all warm and drowsy, which is nice; only things seem to sort of slide around in the corners of her vision. “Have you brushed your teeth,” she goes on, and Helen nods. Richard and Simon retrieved all her toiletries from the car, so she’s brushed and flossed and rinsed with mouthwash.  
“Thank you, Mrs Tweak,” she mutters, slurring the words very slightly.  
“Well,” her mother-in-law says, smiling just a little bit. “That’s you too, now – Mrs Tweak.”  
Helen snorts. “You’re right, Mrs Tweak,” she says, before she has an actual giggling fit and has to sit down on the bed. There are two separate mattresses in there too, she notices, before she idly starts to wonder if people have ever dropped stuff down the crack between them. Maybe there’s lost coins and earrings and all sorts of things to be found in there. She'd better be careful, so she doesn't lose her wedding ring to the Chasm of No Return!  
“Mom, what’d you give her,” Richard mutters, while he pulls the duvet out from under her butt and starts tucking her in; and Helen can’t _help_ but find this hilarious.  
She’s more or less calmed down by the time her mother-in-law has left. That’s when Richard climbs into bed next to her, waving a piece of paper under her nose. “Helen,” he says, and now he sounds one _hundred_ percent like himself again, “If I can have your attention for just a minute?”  
Helen buries her face in the pillow and snorts. The pattern on the pillow case matches the pattern on the duvet, and she really can’t look at it for too long without feeling weird. Is this what being _drunk_ feels like? “You know what, Richie,” she says, “You have this _really_ sarcastic way of saying someone’s name. But you only seem to do it to people you like?”  
That takes him by surprise. “I’m not _sarcastic,_ ” Richard says, in the most sarcastic tone _ever,_ and it’s so funny that she’ll explode if she doesn’t laugh. “Helen, come on. Try to focus. I’m trying to give you your wedding present here!”  
“Huh?” She peers at the piece of paper. It’s a photocopy of that form they had to fill out, with their personal details on it. Richard’s form. Full name, date of birth, religion… That’s when she suddenly gets it. Because where she would have expected him to write “N/A”, he’s written “Buddhist”.  
“I started reading that book last night,” he says, while he slips one leg out from under his own duvet, and sticks a cautious foot under hers. “And I figured; why not give it a try?”  
“Holy _crap,_ I love you,” Helen says, before she puts her hands around Richard’s cheeks and pulls him close for one more kiss.


	8. Epilogue: Hey there, kiddo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We've reached the end of this little "How Richard Met Helen" fic, and I hope you've enjoyed it. Now I will officially set it free, to float or sink in the ocean of South Park fanfics. Thanks for sticking with this story!

Chubby baby thighs, Helen thinks, as she finishes putting the clean diaper on her son with quick, practiced movements. Is there anything cuter in the _world_ than chubby baby thighs? She carefully pokes her fingertip into her son’s little leg, pulls her hand back, and watches the little dimple she made in his flesh slowly even itself out until his skin is smooth once again.  
Flat on his back, her son giggles and burbles in his usual nonsense talk. It’s like he’s worked out that humans make noise to communicate; just not that the noises need to _mean_ something. That’s why Richard claims it’s still pointless to read him fairy-tales. Yesterday evening, he put the baby to sleep by reading him articles from a car magazine. Helen had been almost offended when that worked. They’re in the market for a new car now, preferably second-hand. The trusty green Oldsmobile never quite recovered from when she gave birth to their little boy inside it, halfway to the hospital.  
“Hey there, kiddo,” Helen says, leaning over him and rubbing her nose against his tiny button nose. That makes him giggle even more. You wouldn’t think this was the same baby who kept her up half the night screaming, because he had gas in his little tummy. That’s why Richard left her to sleep in this morning, while he went to open the shop with his father. When Helen woke up, it was just little Tweek lying next to her in bed, babbling happily to himself while he pulled on his own toes with his stubby little fingers.  
Helen still remembers waking up in hospital with a blood transfusion going into her arm, and Richard sitting right next to her with this tiny, tufty-haired bundle in his arms, feeding it formula. You’d think he was bottle-feeding a _kitten_ or something, that’s how small it seemed, but she could also see the little hand waving in the air. Five tiny fingers, with perfectly formed tiny nails.  
She’d tried to speak, but all she’d managed was a sleepy whimper. Still, Richard had noticed right away, and jumped to his feet. “Helen,” he’d said, pulling the bottle out of the baby’s mouth, “You want to hold him, right?”  
“Him,” Helen had said, drowsily. They’d chosen not to find out the gender, when the ultrasound technician had offered. Giving birth on all fours in the back seat of the car, of course she’d _noticed_ it was a boy. There had just been so much going _on_ that she hadn’t really had time to get used to the idea.  
He’d settled against her almost immediately, their little son. His tiny mouth had clamped around her nipple, and he’d squeezed his eyes shut while he sucked. Helen hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him, as she propped the baby up with her left arm. Stroking that blonde fluff on his head with one finger, marvelling at how light he was. “Did you fill out the forms already,” she’d asked, almost absently, but Richard had taken a little too long to reply.  
“What did you _do,_ ” Helen had said. Well, yelled, really. The baby hadn’t reacted at all, just kept right on sucking – obviously, he liked the real deal way more than formula from a bottle.  
“I just couldn’t bring myself to do it,” Richard had said, spreading his hands. By “it”, of course, he’d meant filling in the baby name Helen had _thought_ they’d agreed on. “Arjuna Indivara”, which meant “Pure Blue Lotus” in Sanskrit. She’d spent _weeks_ coming up with that name. And part of the reason she'd picked it, was that Helen had been so sure that their baby would inherit Richard's blue eyes - which he had. “I mean,” Richard had gone on, obviously well aware that he was in deep, _deep_ shit, “In my heart, he was always just “little Tweak”, you know?”  
“You named our baby TWEAK TWEAK?!” Helen’s right hand had closed around the potted blue cosmos someone had put on her bedside table, with a pale blue bow tied around the pot and everything. Screaming wordlessly, she’d thrown the whole thing at Richard’s head.  
And Richard had jumped aside at the last second, yelling, “But it’s okay, Helen, _I spelled it differently!_ ” just as the pot shattered against the wall, spilling dirt and flowers everywhere.  
Still. She has to admit the name sort of suits him, her little Tweek. After she’s put a clean onesie on him – it’s bright red with a pattern of tiny fir trees, and she bought it for him because she’s read somewhere that red is the first colour babies learn to see – Helen carries Tweek back inside the bedroom, propped up on her hip. He’s still small for a six-month-old, but after almost a month of eating solids, he _is_ getting bigger and heavier.  
Helen puts Tweek down in the crib they’ve set up for him, on her side of the bed. He immediately starts to whine, but she quickly distracts him with a toy; a floppy eared dog with the eyes and nose picked out in thread, to make it safe for babies. Then she makes the bed. They’ve got a double duvet now, which makes it easier to snuggle and stay warm during the Colorado winter, with a cover that’s got a huge golden Buddha printed on it, one hand held up in a blessing. Amazing, really, the gems you can pick up at Target. The quilted lotus bedcover they brought back from Khatmandu goes on top, and Helen runs her hands over it, straightening it just so. Then she picks up the mint-green Care Bear that always sits on her bedside table – she must’ve knocked it over while she was shaking the duvet out – and sits her down in her usual spot, between the alarm clock and the square tissue-box. Wish Bear is so clearly a girl bear, after all, with her long eyelashes and heart-shaped nose. Those are the reasons Helen hasn’t passed the bear on to Tweek yet – it wouldn’t be safe; he might bite off that heart-shaped nose and swallow it. And now, there is nothing more important in the _world_ to Helen than keeping Tweek safe. She has nightmares, sometimes, about what her own parents might to do him – not that she’d ever let them come _near_ her baby.  
She and Richard have been back here for almost a year now, staying with his parents while they figure out what to do next. They got back just in time for Martin’s graduation, and now he’s gone off to study veterinary medicine in Colorado Springs – so Helen’s been telling herself that maybe it’s good for David and Rose, that they’re back. Keeping the old empty nest syndrome at bay, and getting free babysitting in return, when they decide to do something _crazy_ like go for dinner, or catch a movie. For now, they’re working at Tweak Bros and living in the same bedroom they spent their wedding night, and the rest of Senior year in. They’d moved all their stuff in there – including Richard’s bookshelves – when Rose had declared they might as well just swap over and turn Richard’s old room into the new guest room. Helen now runs her fingers along the spines, smiling as she quietly reads the titles to herself. Strange Wine, The Tombs of Atuan, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish… At one point, maybe it _was_ when they’d carried everything in here, the books had become jumbled around. But she’d liked that – their books meshing together, just like _they_ had begun to mesh together. Vegetarian cookbooks, science fiction novels and Buddhist texts, all standing shoulder to shoulder.  
In front of the books, framed photographs are spread out across the shelves. There’s one of Buster in his full pow-wow gear, with beaded bracelets shoved up his thick, muscular arms as he grins at the camera from under a feathered headdress. That knife he used to bring to school is fastened to his belt, the beaded scabbard matching the colours of what Buster described as his “fancy-dancing costume” in the letter that came with the photo. Shortly after the court case, where Gregory was given the choice between a five-month prison sentence and a hefty fine, which he paid, Buster and Jamie’s grandparents came into the picture. The two boys had been brought to the Southern Ute reservation, where their grandparents were active members of the tribal government, and enrolled in the local school. Buster and Orville had both bawled like crazy when the time came to finally say goodbye, but Orville’s been to visit them every summer since – first with his parents and little sister, and now on his own. Apparently his red hair makes him hugely popular with the Ute girls, though Orville himself always blushes and denies this. He’s become a regular at Tweak Bros now, sometimes doing his homework, sometimes just to draw, whether he’s sketching the other patrons for practice or inking the pages of that comic book he’s working on.  
Next to that is a picture of Mr Carter and Frank, his boyfriend with the Tom Selleck mustache, taken on a skiing holiday. They’ve both pulled their sunglasses off, squinting and smiling, and Mr Carter has raised one gloved hand in a little wave. His latest letter is tucked behind the picture frame, Helen really needs to find the time to sit down and answer it.  
The first time they’d managed to meet up was about a month or so after she’d married Richard. He’d been on her case about contacting Mr Carter ever since Helen had got her file back from Mrs Novotny and found his address and phone number in there. He _had_ been the initial point of contact for social services, after all. So she’d called the number on that old, faded form with her heart in her throat, half convinced Mr Carter wouldn’t even _have_ this number anymore – only to find that nothing had changed. And he’d been so happy to hear from her that he and Frank – the _same_ boyfriend who’d given Helen his old Karate Kid shirt to sleep in – had driven all the way out here the very next weekend. Helen had worn that shirt, of course, and Frank had recognised it immediately, when Mr Carter – she does her best to call him John, now – had hugged her and literally lifted her off the ground. Then, stilted introductions had been made, and suddenly, Richard had doubled over laughing – “John Carter?! As in, John Carter of Mars?!”  
Mr Carter had blushed and muttered, “Yes, unfortunately,” and then Frank had drawled, “So I guess that makes _me_ Princess Dejah.” After that, things hadn’t been awkward at all.  
“Hey Tweek,” Helen says, leaning over the crib and smiling down at him. Tweek immediately drops the toy dog and reaches both hands out to her, giggling. “You want to go downstairs with Mommy, and get some breakfast?”  
Tweek coos at her happily, kicking his feet in the air. He loves being picked up and cuddled – it’s almost like he’s forgotten how she held him, not ten minutes ago. Grabby little fingers close around the neckline of her old paisley blouse, tugging at it. Helen ducks her head and kisses that tiny hand, before she blows a raspberry into the crook of his neck, making Tweek shriek with pleasure. Fart sounds are one of his new favourite things, along with mashed banana and Tenar the cat, who was not allowed to go live in the college dorms with Martin. Tenar treats Tweek like he's some kind of overgrown kitten, and elegantly avoids him _and_ his attempts at pulling on her tail. She’s never bitten or scratched him, not _once._  
Helen opens the door to take Tweek downstairs, and sure enough, there’s the cat. She does that weave thing cats like to do between Helen’s legs for a minute, a figure-eight in motion. Tweek squeals and reaches out like he wants to grab her, even though he’s way up here on Helen’s hip and Tenar’s down on the floor. Then, with effortless feline grace, Tenar hops up on the bed. She walks in exactly three circles before she lies down, right in the middle of the pink lotus, her favorite spot. Calmly raising one paw and spreading the claws out to lick herself clean. You’d never think this was the same cat that Martin found behind the coffee shop dumpsters, and lured out with some milk and just-expired sandwich ham. Her stripy grey coat is glossy now, and there’s nothing jumpy about her at all – Tenar has clearly decided that she _owns_ this house, and all the humans in it.  
“Let’s go, Tweek,” Helen says, bouncing him on her hip a little to distract him from the cat, “Mommy’s gonna make you breakfast!” And Tweek is easily distracted – a little too easily, perhaps. Since he was born so early, the doctors have warned them to look out for signs of ADHD. But they’ll cross that bridge if and when they come to it – for now, he’s happy, and healthy, and that’s all Helen cares about. 

Downstairs in the kitchen, Rose is making oatmeal. Which sounds boring and gross, except Rose puts vanilla extract and honey in there, while it’s still thickening into porridge. And she always cuts up fruit to pile up on top – today it’s a mango, half for Helen, half for her, along with sliced-up banana and blueberries. She must’ve started cooking when she heard Helen walking around upstairs. Rose has finally put some weight back on, and her auburn hair’s is growing out again, after five whole months of being in remission. Just the other day, Helen helped shape it into a French bob. She’s been telling Rose they should go hit a bar together ever since, just one or two towns over, and tell people that they’re sisters. Rose always waves her offer away, but at least it makes her smile.  
“Helen,” she says, while Helen’s putting Tweek into his high chair, “Have a look in the paper.”  
It’s the same high chair all three Tweek brothers have sat in, apparently; Richard had found it in the attic and reassembled it after Tweek was born. As soon as Tweek’s safely strapped in there, and has been distracted with the plastic music box they’ve hung on the chair that plays “London Bridge Is Falling Down”, Helen picks up the paper that’s been laid out across the placemat by her usual seat. Rose has folded it over, on the obituaries page of all things.  
Helen’s eyes quickly scan the page – Rose never does anything without a reason, so there’s bound to be a reason for this – until she finds a name she recognizes. “Gregory Robinson,” she reads out loud. “Fifty-six years old… Lost his battle with throat cancer?”  
“Funeral’s on Monday,” Rose says, as she puts down a bowl of porridge heaped high with fruit in front of Helen. “I don’t assume you’re planning to turn up?”  
It’s weird. Gregory used to be the big bogey-man in her life, but Helen had almost forgotten that he ever existed. She’s done so many things since she lived under his roof – joined a commune, run away from said commune, moved to Tibet, and then to Nepal… She’s milked goats and raised chickens and given birth, and she supposes that at some point during all of that, she just stopped being scared of him. But shouldn’t she feel… _something?_  
“No,” she says, while Rose sits down opposite Tweek, to feed him some oatmeal before she eats her own, “I don’t suppose I will.” 

After they’ve finished their late breakfast, the two women strap Tweek into his baby seat and fold the pram up, so it’ll fit in the Jetta’s trunk. Then Rose drives them out to Tweak Bros, so Helen can change places with her father-in-law for the afternoon rush, and Tweek’s grandparents can take him on a nice stroll around that park on the outskirts of town. The one with all the little bridges, where Richard broke his ankle all those years ago. David will probably keep an eye out for Launchpad McQuack; he claims to have seen the old mallard from time to time. As far as Helen knows, he’s telling the truth; she has no idea how long ducks are supposed to live. She and Rose bring Tweek into the coffee shop first, though – he’s a big hit with their regulars, who are always asking about him.  
Sometimes, if David and Rose are busy, they’ll just keep him in the coffee shop with them. Richard is perfectly capable of making latte-art with a baby on his hip, and Tweek loves watching the patterns take shape in the foam. Of course that means constantly wiping every surface down, because babies are regular bacteria factories according to David, but that doesn’t bother Helen so much. The three of them in here, together, is worth a little scrubbing.  
“Mommy’s got to go to work now,” she tells Tweek, while Richard takes him from Rose and bounces Tweek gently up and down, and starts up his usual “Say “Daddy” nonsense. As _if_ that’s going to work. Helen’s got her own plan in place, to make sure he says “Mommy” first.  
They have a very quiet twenty minutes after Richard’s parents have left with the baby, so Helen makes herself a cappuccino and sprinkles it liberally with chocolate powder. She still feels all weird, sort of woozy, almost, since reading that obituary. Sort of… empty.  
“Bacteria cells today, eh,” Richard’s saying, and it takes Helen a minute to realize he’s talking about the pattern on her shirt.  
“It’s called paisley, Richie,” she says absently. How many years has she _had_ this shirt now? Since _before_ she met him; Helen’s certain of that. The cuffs are starting to show some threads now, and she’s had to stitch one armpit up twice, but Helen won’t throw this top out until it _literally_ falls apart.  
“You know, Dad’s actually thinking of rebranding? We were talking about that new Starbucks,” Richard goes on, giving that name the same infliction you’d use on words like “child molester” and “dog turd”, “And how they get all their milk brought in from who knows where. So then I said, maybe our selling point can be that we’re more, you know, _farm-fresh,_ and can actually _tell_ people where our milk came from. You want a bagel with that?”  
“Uh?” Helen’s momentarily thrown by the sudden change of subject. “No, no I’m good. Did you see the paper this morning?”  
“I have no time for such fripperies,” Richard drawls, sliding his arm around her waist and giving her butt a quick, proprietary tap. “Not when there’s diapers to be changed.” So her butt got a _little_ bigger, during her pregnancy – not _that_ much bigger, though. Not that Richard seems to mind. “We listened to the news in the car, though?”  
“Oh, it was just an obituary,” Helen says, leaning into him a little while she sips her coffee. The only customers here right now are those two police officers who often come in around this time of day, for black coffee and something sweet – not _necessarily_ doughnuts; not that they’re opposed to the idea. So she can cuddle up to her husband, just a little bit. “Remember Gregory?”  
Richard immediately straightens up. “The Gregory who groped and _terrorized_ you? Yeah,” he nods, and when Helen looks up at him, his face is thoughtful. “I remember him. Is he dead, then?”  
“Yeah,” Helen says, before she has another sip of coffee. “And I just… don’t know what to feel?”  
“Satisfaction,” Richard suggests, and looks honestly offended when Helen smacks him in the arm. She didn't even smack him that _hard_. “What? The guy was an asshole to you, and now he’s dead – I mean, we should be _celebrating_ this.”  
“I should be contacting Buster, _actually,_ ” Helen says, moving pointedly away from him. “Maybe he and Jamie would want to be there for Lorraine. For the funeral,” she adds, when Richard just stares at her.  
“I don’t get it,” he says, quietly so those two cops won’t hear, “Why are you made at _me?_ ”  
Helen groans. “I’m not _mad,_ I just…” She drains her cup, and puts it down in the sink. No point in rinsing it out; the industrial dishwasher will take care of _anything_. Helen’s pretty sure she could even delouse herself by climbing inside that thing and running a cycle – if the need should ever arise. “A person has _died,_ ” she says, struggling to put her thoughts into words. “And even though he was an _awful_ person, he was still a _person,_ so I feel like I _should_ be sad? But I just feel…” she shrugs, throws her hands up, “Nothing.”  
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling nothing.”  
Helen looks over at her husband, startled.  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean…” Richard _almost_ scratches his head, but at the last second he seems to remember about food safety rules, and lowers his hand. “At least you know yourself well enough to _know_ what you’re feeling? Or not feeling,” he adds, shrugging. “Maybe that’s the biggest sign of respect you can show someone like that, _not_ throwing a party because he died.”  
In spite of herself, Helen has to laugh.  
“Can I hug you now? Or are you just going to hit me again?”  
“Oh _please,_ ” Helen groans, rolling her eyes at the ceiling even as Richard wraps his arms around her. “You make it sound like I came after you with a crowbar or something!”  
For a minute, they just lean into each other like two cats, and Helen closes her eyes. “Want to cut a deal with Mom and Dad,” Richard mutters, nuzzling her hair. “If we take the late shift too, and then go out and _do_ something?”  
“You mean, like a date?” Helen’s more than a little tempted. “It’s been a while since we had one of those.” She looks up as the doorbell chimes, and a frazzled-looking man in a business suit comes in – the lunchtime rush is officially in session. “But just so we’re clear on this,” she says, as she grabs an apron from the shelf and quickly pulls it over her head, “We’re not celebrating.”  
“ _You’re_ not,” Richard says, and flashes her a wink and that incorrigible grin of his, before he steps smartly up to the till. “Welcome to Tweak Bros, what can I get you?”


End file.
